Treefall, Absentee Ballot Review

 Woke up to the sound of high winds - wasn't sure at first if it was winds or planes.  But it was wind.  And a spruce tree we'd planted over 40 years ago, toppled over and is resting on the corner of our neighbor's roof.  The tree was on a hill, like the one that fell over last winter.  So the downside roots have less to grip.  Last year the tree fell into another tree which stopped it from falling further. When the top, that was leaning onto the other tree was cut off,  the tree stayed standing at about a 50˚ angle.  The tree man who came out to look today said he thought the tree today would have come down slowly.  

Tuesday I was at the Division of Elections to observe the the DoE employees as they reviewed the incoming absentee ballots.  Two workers sit at a small table.  They get a plastic bin with ballots in it.  They are sorted by date received and district.  They get a slip of paper with info on it - district, date received, number of electronic ballots and mailed in ballots, total number, and sequence numbers.  Another paper has a list of the voters with the information on the voter.  Then they count the ballots to make sure the numbers are right.  Next, they check the information the voter has put on the ballot against their list - name, address, id number, etc.  

photo from ADN* - no phones
allowed when observing

I was there just half a day because there were too many observers, so I split the day with another observer.  Half a day was plenty.  The two workers I observed Tuesday were terrific.  They welcomed me to the table and said they'd answer any question I had, but not to talk while they were counting ballots.  They went through the ballots really fast.  The bins had anywhere from half a dozen ballots to one with 324 ballots.  

There were very few ballots that were flagged with problems.  Two, from a married couple, had been written on the wrong envelopes.  He was listed on her envelope and vice versa.  The reviewers were able to get permission from a supervisor to accept those ballots.  Another two people from the same address didn't have witnesses.  They were rejected.  Someone else had used a primary election envelope and that too was rejected.  (I asked the next day if anyone had checked to see if the person had possibly used the correct ballot, but the wrong envelope.  They assured me someone had checked.)   Other voters had moved and were in new districts but used the old district ballots.  So their choices for state offices (based on their district) would not count because they no longer lived in that district, but the statewide offices - Governor, US House and Senate and some or all of the judges (depending on which judicial districts they lived in) would count.  

Wednesday, I observed a different pair of workers, but they were equally friendly and efficient.  But this time they encouraged me to get a copy of the register they were reviewing.  At first I was confused.  When they read off the identifier number (drivers license, social security (last four digits ok), voter id, or date of birth I couldn't find them on my register.  I asked and was told it wasn't on my copy - confidential information.  

The first day, without my own register, I watched the envelopes carefully,  Some had one forever stamp, some had two, others had no stamps. One had a stamped price from the post office.  $1.11.  That's more than a forever stamp.  So I asked.  Turns out, the post office will deliver them without stamps.

[There's been the sound of chain saws in the neighborhood most of the day, and just now it sounded closer.  They're working on our tree now too.]

One of the things I realized was that the ballots had already been reviewed once.  People had collected them, taken off the privacy cover, reviewed the information, marked some for rejection, and resealed them.  

Let me explain that a bit more.  I don't have a photo of back of the envelope because I didn't take a picture of ours and we had to leave our phones outside the room we were observing in.  

This is my drawing of the flap on the back of the envelope.  The ballot is put inside the envelope and on the back, the voter writes their information and the witness signature.  Then the flap is pulled down, the adhesive at the bottom inside the flap is licked and sealed, covering all the information.  

The envelopes the people I observed worked with, had that privacy cover taken off [below] and it was resealed with the adhesive near the top of the flap.  I did look at one such envelope that someone had [in the review room so I didn't have my phone to take a picture] because they hadn't voted yet.  There was no perforation to help tear the flap off.  And some of the ballots had been torn off roughly.  Several the workers had to use tape to seal them better.  

So why am I bringing this up?  It seems to me that the whole point of allowing observers to watch the process of reviewing the ballots is to give confidence to the public that everything is on the up and up.  

But apparently, there's a whole process where the flaps are taken off, and the envelopes are unsealed with the ballots inside, before they are resealed.  And then the first round of checking the envelopes takes place.  All that happens, as far as I can tell, without independent observers watching.  

As I said, the people reviewing the ballots were absolutely professional AND welcoming to the observers (at least the four people I watched were to me.)  But behind closed doors, there are people with envelopes that are NOT sealed for a while.  It's a time when someone could slip out a ballot and add marks to the ranked choice ballots that would invalidate the ballot, at least for that race.  

Wednesday, I came in at noon and they were out of ballots at 2:30pm so I got to go home early.  Thursday's review was also cancelled and  Friday was too.  I'm not sure why.  

[The tree was cut while I wrote this and is gone now.  Cutting a tree takes less time than writing a blog post.]

*ADN = Anchorage Daily News