I volunteer as a back-up poll worker. I show up at
headquarters (in this case True the Vote headquarters at the King Street
Patriots location in Houston) as soon as I can get there, which with traffic
was a little after 1:00 PM.
While I have been trained and qualified several times as a
poll watcher, and was signed up online for training, for some reason the system
had not accepted my login. Various other trainings, like researching voter
databases, were available (some of which I had gone through at home), but the
actual Poll Watcher Training wasn’t there for me, and so I couldn’t certify by
taking the test online. I had given TTV a heads up by email, and I had prepared
at home by reviewing my training from last year.
At headquarters we were still unable to get me online to
take the qualifying test, at least in a short timeframe. When we got impatient
waiting for a new password to be sent to my email, that I could receive on my
phone, we finally decided to have me do the test on paper. (Isn’t low-tech
great!) I got 100%, which means my training from past years was pretty
thorough. They also provided me with a printed version of the training book for
my state, which I should have had access to online, and I was able to take that
with me. I also got supplied with other poll watcher helps in a packet.
They were ready to send me into the field as soon as I got
credentialed. So we signed the paperwork. I was actually sent out as a poll
watcher representing one of the candidates for judge. In Texas each party is
allowed two poll watchers per polling location, each candidate is allowed two
poll watchers, and any organization involved in an issue on the ballot would be
allowed two poll watchers. So it could get crowded if volunteer poll watchers
were more ubiquitous. But the goal has been to make sure each polling location
was watched, preferably with more than one poll watcher.
Our polls are set up with a Presiding Judge, who runs the
polling place; this person is from the party that won the majority in that
precinct in the last election (I don’t know whether that means it could change
theoretically every two years, or only every four years). Then there is an
Alternate Judge from the opposite party. There are usually several clerks; we
had four. Law requires the PJ to choose at least one clerk from the opposing
party (if a list of such persons is made available), but ours were all
Democrats. These are all paid positions—low pay, but they receive something a
little above minimum wage for their hours, I believe. The county registrar’s
office is the source of the pay, I believe.
Poll watchers are unpaid. Our job is simply to observe the
process and report any incidents or irregularities—or to verify the accuracy of
the process. Anyone trying to carry out a free and fair election has no need to
fear from well-trained poll watchers. We help the process, and our presence
tends to make things go more smoothly. Poll watchers do not interact with
voters, do not interfere with voters, do not observe how a person votes, other
than to watch the process when a voter is being aided by a poll worker, to
verify that no influence is taking place.
I was sent to an area in southeast Houston, an ethnically
black area, with some Hispanics, and not many whites. The PJ and all of the
clerks were black; none spoke Spanish. The AJ and poll watchers were pretty
obvious because of our racial difference.
There was only one poll watcher, Patsy, from the beginning
of the day. She was there for the setup, with her credentials, well trained.
The PJ through a screaming, harassing fit about her being there and hindered
her in every way but throwing her out. (I have been sent to replace poll
watchers who have been thrown out, so this is milder.) There were numerous
irregularities and illegalities before I was sent. I don’t know what those
were, except that the PJ insisted on allowing the vote of someone who had been
sent a ballot-by-mail and did not bring that with them. Legally, such a person
must turn in the paper ballot to make sure it is not counted, if they want to
vote in person after all. Otherwise, it would be easy for a person to vote by
mail and also vote in person, which would be illegal.
The Alternate Judge, Brenda, handled all eligibility calls
to the county, all day, which probably saved us. The PJ said, at one point, “We
don’t stand on such formalities here.” Her clerks, though, did seem to me to be
doing their best just to do their jobs. We had a number of provisional ballots
(not counted votes, but to be reviewed later for eligibility), but not an
unusual number.
I was treated respectfully by the PJ and others. Maybe it
was having a second poll watcher there that made her take things seriously;
maybe she had been contacted by the County about complaints received about her
and was told to straighten up. I don’t know; I only know that things were not
nearly as bad after I got there as Patsy had suffered early in the day. I took only
one 10-minute break, for food, just before 6:00, and during my break a third
poll watcher, Linda, joined us through the closing of the polls and counting;
it was her first time.
I handled one special case during the day, right after I
came back around 6:00. A woman came in with her father, who could neither read
nor speak English. No Spanish-speaking poll worker was available, so the woman
was sworn in as a poll worker to help her father vote. This is according to
protocol and not particularly unusual. The PJ asked that someone who spoke
Spanish observe. I was going to do that anyway, but it’s funny that the PJ
actually wanted me to closely observe. For the most part, I don’t think the
woman was trying to influence the vote, but she did illegally handle the
machine. I tried nudging her at the beginning, but didn’t get her attention, so
I continued observing. Our e-slate machines have a wheel to move from frame to
frame, and then an enter button, and a final “cast ballot” button. She handled
the wheel the entire time, and then had the voeter press the appropriate
buttons. There were several propositions on the City of Houston ballot, and for
a couple of those she simply read the title and said, “You wanted to vote for
that, didn’t you?” which, again, isn’t strictly legal. But based on how the
rest of the ballot had gone, it appeared to me she was verifying their previous
conversations and not telling him how to vote.
When the ballot was cast, I pulled her aside and explained
to her about not touching the machine, if she did this in the future, and she
seemed to appreciate being told. There was no animosity. I did write up the
incident report, but included that I did not think she was trying to act
illegally but was simply not well-enough trained. Maybe I should have
interfered more forcefully, but it seemed pointless. A man between 50-60 who can’t
read (any language) or speak English, but is a certified voter and therefore a
citizen—it does not surprise me how such a person votes.
At the end of the day, the official count of signed names
was 20 lower than the official count of legal ballots cast on the machines.
That is supposed to reconcile; it didn’t. The PJ seemed not at all concerned
with the discrepancy. The likely explanation is that someone failed to write
the names of voters 20 times during the day. That’s a lot, actually. I was
watching up to four clerks at a time, so I could have missed something, but I
didn’t notice any voters whose names were not written on the list. The AJ said
she would let the county know of the concern, and I wrote it up on an incident
report.
Here’s why I’m concerned about such a small thing. The
national vote difference was 2,828,267 (by the count I saw Monday evening). The
number of polling places nationwide is approximately 250,000. Divide the vote
difference by the number of polling places, and the result is 11.3 votes per
polling place.
2,828,267 vote
difference
÷
±250,000 polling locations
_________________________
11.3 votes per polling place
There is another thing I noted about voting day. I voted at
my precinct late morning. The first 2-hour count posted on the door was, as I
recall, 232. I left probably just before the 11:30 count was posted, but if
that held throughout the day, then you’d expect about 1392. So that is my
perspective of what was normal on Election Day, in addition to early voting.
At the polling location where I watched, the counts were as
follows:
9:30 117
11:30 227
(111 votes since 9:30)
1:30 364 (137 votes since 11:30)
3:30 432 (68 votes since 1:30)
5:30 549 (117 votes since 3:30)
7:00 670 (121 votes since
5:30)
There were no extraordinarily long lines. Sometimes all the
booths were full and people were waiting to vote. But generally the clerks were
able to keep up with the flow of incoming voters. There was no line at closing.
In fact, the final half hour was very slow. Two people walked in a few minutes
after 7:00, and the clerk turned them away, because they had not arrived by the
closing of the polls—this was appropriate.
Word across the country was that the Democrats had taken
full advantage of early voting. However, in Harris County (where Houston is),
Republicans clearly outnumbered Democrats in early voting. But Democrats won
the Harris County vote because of their Election Day turnout. And yet in a
highly Democrat area, I saw light voting, about half the size of the vote in my
home precinct. That’s anecdotal, I realize. But you can imagine my surprise
when I got to my car around 8:45 PM and turned on the radio to find out that
everything was other than I had seen. Odd.
I had expected to be able to do my report as well as talk
about fraud generally in one post. But this is enough for one day. There’s more
to say about the value of free and fair elections, but I’ll save that for
another post.
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