Mar 8 2011 LA City (LACCD) Election -- 2nd time Inspector -- REVIEW
On Tuesday March 8th we had a local LA City election, and though I don't live in LA City proper, the LACCD (Los Angeles Community College District) does overlap into my city. Therefore my little city was a participant in the LA City election. And I'd signed up to be a Poll Inspector -- the person in charge of the Polling Place. Here's how it went (recorded here so I'll have it for next time, and for anyone who might be curious):
I received a call from an LA City coordinator to inform me that the Pastor (at the Church that was to be my Polling Place -- Church of the Nazarene) wanted me to call him to coordinate me setting up the room the day before the election, and to receive the key to the place. That was fine; I called him and we set up me dropping by at noon on Monday. But he wanted me to bring someone to help set up (something about heavy tables), and was kinda insistent. I said I'd try, but I might not be able to get help. I expected to be alone.
There are five jobs at our polls -- and we had five people. I'd been assigned six pollworkers (including me), but only 4 of the 5 responded when I phoned them the Sunday beforehand (one didn't call back after I left a voicemail). For this election with its low expected turnout, I didn't concern myself with contacting the city to replace the missing Clerk. We'd have 2 regular Clerks, 2 student Clerks, plus me as the Inspector/Clerk.
Actually, I didn't have to phone one of my clerks, since she'd already phoned me. That was nice -- she was being extra thorough and making sure there would be an inspector (I was a fill-in for the originally-assigned inspector, who'd apparently quit after getting hired for a Real Job). Since this woman was so eager, I asked her if she'd show up at noon on Voting Eve to help me set up the tables, and she agreed! Cool!
On Saturday February 26 between 8am and 5pm I was supposed to pick up the heaps o' voting stuff. I'd never received details or a a map (like I was supposed to), I'd just called and asked the LA City people, and they told me to drop by a designated local school. So ~3:30pm I went to the school, and no one was there! I drove further down the street, and saw a big moving van and some people around it in a large parking lot next to a field that may have been associated with the school. I drove slowly by, and didn't know what was up. I drove further, and saw nothing else that had a shred of potential, so I U-turned and drove back, again passing slowly by that parking lot. Though there was no sign for "Election Supply Pick Up" out front (as I'd expected) I decided I had to go in, and see if it was them. It was, and that was a relief! I had to wait a while as they verified that I was indeed the proper replacement for the person they had still named on their list. They got confirmation, I got my stuff, and it was all fine. I took the stuff home, and dragged it all up my stairs alone -- that's rough!
Monday the day before the election, at noon, I show up at the Chuch to meet the Pastor. He says he can show me where the tables are, but I can't get them out 'til after 4pm because the children's day care is in session. When my eager Clerk shows up, I tell her we can't do the only thing I asked her there to help with! But she's cool, and not upset. We decide to set up the voting booths (without the Inka-Vote machines) as something to do. When we're done, and musing about the tables, I realize he never mentioned chairs! I tell my eager Clerk she can leave and I'll drop by the Pastor to ask where the chairs are (in case they're not near the tables). He says that the chairs are indeed nowhere near the tables, and are hidden in a separate closet area. He tries to describe how to get there, and I ask if he'll show me. He agrees, and walks me there. As we're walking, it becomes very clear that his directions would've been wrong. Phew! I'm glad I did all the pushing to make it clear what I needed to do!
So I go back alone after 4pm (~5:30pm) and set up the tables by myself. I can indeed wrestle the tables alone (it's much easier than either the voting machine or the big black ballot box), though it is tiring. I put out most of the materials on the tables, less the ballots and actual rosters.
Morning of the election, 5:15am, I'm dashing around my apartment, about to wrestle stuff out to my car, and I get a phone call. I figure it must be one of my clerks, so I answer, and sure enough, one of my student clerks called asking where the polling place was. I had to dig through my already-packed stuff to find the address for her. Oh well, enough delay that No McD's Breakfast For Me. :(
Like last time, my landlord had our outside apartment lights off at 5:30am. It was rough and kinda dangerous to maneuver the heavy voting machine and ballot box down my DARK flight of stairs alone!!! Though the sun came up enough after I'd wrestled the two biggest heaviest things downstairs.
I did make it on time (well, 6:01 actually) to start the Polling Place set up. With my pre-setup from the day before, we're able to get set up fairly easily in the hour 'til Voting started at 7am.
As I did last time, I assigned myself the Roster Clerk position, because that lets me be the first to greet the potential voters, deal with any up-front difficulties, and direct them to what to do next. That went well. Happily, the rest of our Clerks were reasonably competent, so that part was easy. Of course, we were very comfortable with our five clerks, and easily covered all the jobs with four people when one would take a break.
GENERAL NOTES
Overall it was a lot of work (inspector work usually is) and went relatively smoothly. With two notes (emboldened above) for next time.
I received a call from an LA City coordinator to inform me that the Pastor (at the Church that was to be my Polling Place -- Church of the Nazarene) wanted me to call him to coordinate me setting up the room the day before the election, and to receive the key to the place. That was fine; I called him and we set up me dropping by at noon on Monday. But he wanted me to bring someone to help set up (something about heavy tables), and was kinda insistent. I said I'd try, but I might not be able to get help. I expected to be alone.
There are five jobs at our polls -- and we had five people. I'd been assigned six pollworkers (including me), but only 4 of the 5 responded when I phoned them the Sunday beforehand (one didn't call back after I left a voicemail). For this election with its low expected turnout, I didn't concern myself with contacting the city to replace the missing Clerk. We'd have 2 regular Clerks, 2 student Clerks, plus me as the Inspector/Clerk.
Actually, I didn't have to phone one of my clerks, since she'd already phoned me. That was nice -- she was being extra thorough and making sure there would be an inspector (I was a fill-in for the originally-assigned inspector, who'd apparently quit after getting hired for a Real Job). Since this woman was so eager, I asked her if she'd show up at noon on Voting Eve to help me set up the tables, and she agreed! Cool!
On Saturday February 26 between 8am and 5pm I was supposed to pick up the heaps o' voting stuff. I'd never received details or a a map (like I was supposed to), I'd just called and asked the LA City people, and they told me to drop by a designated local school. So ~3:30pm I went to the school, and no one was there! I drove further down the street, and saw a big moving van and some people around it in a large parking lot next to a field that may have been associated with the school. I drove slowly by, and didn't know what was up. I drove further, and saw nothing else that had a shred of potential, so I U-turned and drove back, again passing slowly by that parking lot. Though there was no sign for "Election Supply Pick Up" out front (as I'd expected) I decided I had to go in, and see if it was them. It was, and that was a relief! I had to wait a while as they verified that I was indeed the proper replacement for the person they had still named on their list. They got confirmation, I got my stuff, and it was all fine. I took the stuff home, and dragged it all up my stairs alone -- that's rough!
Monday the day before the election, at noon, I show up at the Chuch to meet the Pastor. He says he can show me where the tables are, but I can't get them out 'til after 4pm because the children's day care is in session. When my eager Clerk shows up, I tell her we can't do the only thing I asked her there to help with! But she's cool, and not upset. We decide to set up the voting booths (without the Inka-Vote machines) as something to do. When we're done, and musing about the tables, I realize he never mentioned chairs! I tell my eager Clerk she can leave and I'll drop by the Pastor to ask where the chairs are (in case they're not near the tables). He says that the chairs are indeed nowhere near the tables, and are hidden in a separate closet area. He tries to describe how to get there, and I ask if he'll show me. He agrees, and walks me there. As we're walking, it becomes very clear that his directions would've been wrong. Phew! I'm glad I did all the pushing to make it clear what I needed to do!
So I go back alone after 4pm (~5:30pm) and set up the tables by myself. I can indeed wrestle the tables alone (it's much easier than either the voting machine or the big black ballot box), though it is tiring. I put out most of the materials on the tables, less the ballots and actual rosters.
Morning of the election, 5:15am, I'm dashing around my apartment, about to wrestle stuff out to my car, and I get a phone call. I figure it must be one of my clerks, so I answer, and sure enough, one of my student clerks called asking where the polling place was. I had to dig through my already-packed stuff to find the address for her. Oh well, enough delay that No McD's Breakfast For Me. :(
Like last time, my landlord had our outside apartment lights off at 5:30am. It was rough and kinda dangerous to maneuver the heavy voting machine and ballot box down my DARK flight of stairs alone!!! Though the sun came up enough after I'd wrestled the two biggest heaviest things downstairs.
I did make it on time (well, 6:01 actually) to start the Polling Place set up. With my pre-setup from the day before, we're able to get set up fairly easily in the hour 'til Voting started at 7am.
As I did last time, I assigned myself the Roster Clerk position, because that lets me be the first to greet the potential voters, deal with any up-front difficulties, and direct them to what to do next. That went well. Happily, the rest of our Clerks were reasonably competent, so that part was easy. Of course, we were very comfortable with our five clerks, and easily covered all the jobs with four people when one would take a break.
GENERAL NOTES
- What is new and surprising to me this time is that my Roster is far fatter than usual, containing over 4000 names. I imagine they figured this would be a low-turnout election (especially in my non-LA-City area), and consolidated some precincts. Whatever, that was a lot of names. The stupid LA City rule is that you have to flip the roster book around so the voter can sign right-side-up, and also handwrite (copy) their address. Both of these stupidities bug me. LA County doesn't require either the roster flipping or the address repeating. Also the Index Clerk position has a few inexplicable differences (check off address on master list, cross it off on one copy, and there's only one copy). Why???
- Again it was repeated at the training session I attended that we may not look at IDs or Sample Ballots, even if they're offered to us without us asking. Again, a few people with limited english were offended that I wouldn't look at their Sample Ballots and instead asked them to spell their names. STUPID!!! I really wish they'd reconsider this one!
- Both LA City and LA County have a provisional voting system that uses a "Pink Secrecy Sleeve" to mark provisional ballots in an attempt to avoid having them placed erroneously in the vote reader. This system is inadequate and failed on some of my previous pollworking days. But we had only one provisional voter this time, so there was no problem. BUT THIS "SYSTEM" STILL NEEDS TO BE FIXED! I ask about it each time, and no one cares. We need a sticker or clip to put on the ballot stub that will ensure that the ballot will DEFINITELY be identified as provisional when it's returned, so if the voter goes directly (wrongly) to the Ballot Box Clerk they'll be redirected before their ballot is inappropriately read and drops in the Ballot Box and becomes irretrievable. It does not appear I'm allowed to take this matter into my own hands. :(
- One positive thing about the LA City voting materials was they provided nice pictures and checklists for table setups and the like. This was probably the only bit that I liked better about LA City versus LA County.
- Remember this FOR NEXT TIME: Somehow two (very minor) items I needed for my Polling Place set-up were inexplicably hidden in the GSE (Green-Striped Envelope), and I didn't think to look there. Ultimately found during break-down :( .
- I brought my own supply as follows:
- Blue Painter's Tape (After I'd bought mine, I found LA City supplies this; I knew LA County didn't)
- Duct Tape (important for taping to stone outside in the higher-than-usual winds, after the painter's tape failed)
- Extra Pens (didn't need them this time, but I was more comfortable knowing they were there)
- FOR NEXT TIME: Bring scissors to cut plastic voting box locks and other things.
- My Stuff:
- My personal voting stuff: Sample Ballot (pre-marked), Vote-By-Mail Ballot (not marked yet), Pollworker Manuals
- Sandwich, Sodas, Water, Snax (in small cooler with Blue Ice)
- Books & Magazines
- Lite Jacket
- Again I'd also brought myself a sandwich and snacks and drinks so I could stay all day at the Polling Place without taking a break myself. And I did stay all day even though it would've been fine to leave. I just don't feel fully comfortable leaving when I'm the one who's responsible for everything going proplerly.
- My toughest bit was managing the breakdown. It went much slower and more awkwardly than I'd like. Too many people like to wander off and grab one random bit, moving it from where I knew it was, and try to figure out where it goes. This is not good. And the people couldn't figure out how to break down polling booths alone, which had been my best idea as a task to delegate. IDEA FOR NEXT TIME: Work with everyone to break down the booths and then the voting machine. Then divvy up the materials, assigning some to each person in the room other than me. Then work through the final checklists, asking for each bit, and the person with it will give it to me and I'll put it where it goes. That might make each person feel more involved and not try to do their own thing (wrong).
- The final voting count (since so few people voted) was very easy and went easily with only one tiny bit of extra work. The worst bit was having to go through every page of that fat roster and count the number of signatures on every page, then add those numbers. The first time through we'd missed one. But luckily I'd thought to keep extra notes (page number) for each signature total in our sum, other than the first 20 pages or so. So we only had to go back over those 20 pages (again annotating with page numbers) to find the missing signature. Turns out that annotating process actually helps the accuracy of writing down the numbers. Good, I'll keep that idea for next time.
- Happily, I'd arranged earlier with the Eager Clerk to accompany me to the Pick Up point (that same designated school). So that went smoothly.
- Ultimately our turnout was 40 regular voters, 1 provisional voter, and 17 people dropped off vote-by-mail enevelopes at our Polling Place. This was out of a roster of over 4000 people. *sigh* I know there were a lot of vote-by-mail envelopes that were actually mailed, but I'm sure it wasn't enough to make a respectable turnout. Oh well.
Overall it was a lot of work (inspector work usually is) and went relatively smoothly. With two notes (emboldened above) for next time.