Oh, That Wasn't Us

This has been a week of, "Oh, that's not us."

First, we weren't involved in Super Tuesday and second, the caucus yesterday in Kansas was a party thing, not an election office thing.

But we have been busy.  For grist, I turn you to our warehouse, which we are in the process of rewiring. 

Our voting machines are always plugged in but cycle so the batteries run down and then recharge.

Some rows charge on Sunday, some on Monday, Tuesday, and so on.  The batteries will only last a couple of hours, in case of a temporary loss of power at the polling place, but we want to make sure they are, indeed, ready if called upon.

We purchased 400 machines last year to accommodate growth but our warehouse has no room for them.  We're exchanging tables to squeeze more machines per table.

Or, at least we hope we are exchanging tables.  The new tables have been on order for more than a year with assurance they will all be delivered by June 1.  We'll see.

In the meantime, our facilities group has enlisted a moving company to shift tables around for the electricians and we have been very frustrated that we had to provide extra insurance for them to make these moves.

This is a moving company, after all, in the business to, yup, move things.  Apparently, "Butterfingers McGee Moving" couldn't accept this job without our county paying extra for the insurance for all 2,500 machines.

Really. 

Tables of voting machines, moving 5 feet either way.
The tarp covers them in case the fire sprinklers go off.

Suitcases of supplies that
will be squeezed to make
way for new tables and machines

Oh, and we have a deductible.  Break two machines and that's acceptable, apparently--the first two are on us. 

Of course, they won't break or drop any.  But it was a clever way for the company to get about $21,000 extra from our county, and we have been helpless in pointing this out.  Our Risk Management department had no problem negotiating our money (yours, if you are in Johnson County).

The option would be to leave the new machines standing in the aisles, and that's not acceptable.

I think if the movers thought they would drop all 2,500 machines we probably needed different movers.  All they are doing is lifting each table a foot and moving it over by 5  feet.

Anyway, this is the first time I've popped some pictures of our operation into the blog.  The photos don't do things justice, but I thought it would give you sense of what's happening.  I'll show more when we get closer to our next full-county election in the summer.

New electrical wiring awaiting the
final move (suitcases did
not have to be insured).