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Election Day Experiences, 2006

Voting in Denver
by Michael Anderson, mband@earthlink.net
November 10, 2006

I became a voting machine judge so that I could see first hand if there were obvious problems with the machines or otherwise. There were definitely problems on Tuesday but not too many with the workings of the machines and they were easily corrected.

The first problem of the morning was that we were asked to be there at 5:30 AM and the supervisor didn't show up until 6:15 AM. The training we had was not adequate without experienced help and should have been more hands-on so a late supervisor was a negative. However, she really was not very knowledgeable and in my opinion should not have even been a supervisor. She also had the keys for the machines so little could be done before she arrived. Fortunately, we all managed to be up and running on time with a little extra stress being the main problem.

The supervisor had a special cell phone so the election commission could call in with info. or we could call them. It was not charged and had to be studied on the spot to use. Calls all day long to the election commission were put on hold for 10 minutes or so and some of the problems dealt with waiting voters so this created some anger.

There were no locks for the ballot box used for provisionals so we had to tape it shut with duct tape to protect the ballots.

Lots of confusion as to initial morning paperwork to record seals, etc. and unfortunately the supervisor lacked the knowledge to be help with this. We were resourceful and simply found ways to record this information in informal ways.

A problem with the Advantage machines was that there are 3 lights across the top to light up the ballot and in many machines only the center light was lit making it very difficult to see the upper corners of the ballot. At least one voter left very angry because he was unable to cast some votes. I managed to locate a flashlight after that experience to aid others with similar problems. There was at least one other voter that I am aware of who actually used the flashlight.

We ran out of provisional ballots for our most used ballot style ( #23) and I called early afternoon to have more delivered. They were delivered at 7:05 PM after the close of polls and after a number of people were unable to vote due to the lack of ballots.

The primary problem for us was probably the failure of computers & computer connections to the servers downtown. This caused the greatest delays and most frustration on the part of both the voting public and the pollworkers. From a technology point of view it does not make sense to have a dial-up connection to the servers with so much voter info. traffic going on. Data sourcing moved at a snails pace at the times of day when there was the most demand for it. The voters of Denver were disenfranchised in my opinion. There were a number of voters who went home without voting. The polls should have been extended to allow everyone to vote.

The good news, from our point of view at College View Center, is that we had less problems than many other sights in Denver to the extent that other voting centers were sending voters to our location including in some cases transporting them by special bus.

There were some human errors at our sight on the part of pollworkers (i.e. putting the wrong ballot style in the machine) but I don't think they were common or intentional (I witnessed 2 mistakes by others that I was asked to correct). The pollworkers were all conscientious and the primary weakness was the supervisor.

The oddest thing to me is that we dropped off all the voting records at the end of the day at a Penske rental truck parked on the street behind Lincoln High School at about 10:30 PM. Just seemed strange.

Michael

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Don't forget to check out articles from 2007 and 2008

Election Day Experiences, 2006

"Voting in Denver"
November 10, 2006
Michael Anderson, mband@earthlink.net

"Voting in Hollywood, California"
November 9, 2006
Howard Luken, nemawashigroup@yahoo.com

"First state report, two voting machines down: anomaly, chicanery, or proof of a kleptocracy?"
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"Calls by the GOP giving out wrong precincts in Athens"
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