Six Bites of the Election

This has been such a crazy week that I'm left to update in a way I've been trying to avoid: the hodgepodge collection.

Being a Diary, after all, I've tried for more frequent updates and when then things were happening rapidly this week, I realized I missed some opportunities for video.

I'm dialed in now, though, looking especially for some video to bring to life the preparations in these next two weeks.

First, this week:

1. We have final maps from redistricting.  We've reconciled those against our maps and are making a couple of minor changes, planning to post "official final" early next week.  We have about a gazillion maps to print for candidates and for our election, so we'll begin knocking them out.  Maps take quite a while to print, however.
2. And, speaking of printers, we have a lot at our office.  Trees R'nt Us.  Or, maybe they are because we consume so many.  With about 2,000 different ballot styles for this upcoming election, that's a lot of printing and proofing.  We're fortunate to have such dedicated employees proofing the draft ballots.  They worked as 12-hour day Friday on the heels of about 50 hours put in last week before Friday.  We're hoping to be in ballot-printing production mode before July 4.
3. All of our voting machines are tested manually before each election by a dedicated group of retirees and election workers.  They've done preliminary testing but will be testing them in depth in about 10 days and I'll plan to capture that on video.
4. Likewise, I'll plan some video and photos of our training, which starts in 2 weeks.  Training is exhausting.  I have no idea how Broadway actors can perform as they do because I'm achy and sore after leading a 3-hour training and I don't sing and dance.  I'm still hobbling a smidge following ankle surgery (but I'm beginning to run on my zippered ankle) and I swear I'm shorter since my surgery.  I'm hoping to be physically ready for training and at least the same height as I was in 2010 by then.
5. Speaking of that, I have such empathy for all candidates walking door-to-door in constant 100-degree heat.  I say it often--it's incredibly hard to be a candidate.  I think the winning candidates should push a measure, for their sake, to have all elections only in 70 degree temperatures.
6. Candidates should get their updated voter list orders starting Monday.  We're proofing all the changes, but we're done with the changes.

We have so much ahead of us.  This election especially, we're looking at the most immediate couple of steps.  We're taking a baseball approach to this mid-summer election classic, one day at a time.  We have the whole timeline mapped out, but this is an election that is better taken in bites.

I'll have some images to share with the bites that come after the 4th.

Redistricting Update

Breaking news just after midnight Friday that the federal court had released its redistricting order and maps is creating a four-day election frenzy.

The changes are massive, renumbering districts and putting two incumbents in one district, no candidates in another, and, overall, leading to a different kind of race.  Namely, candidates are racing to get filed or even withdrawn by noon on Monday.

We've already seen one candidate move on Friday so he could file in his new district.

In a clinical way, this is a fun time, almost starting from scratch and reinventing jurisdictions.

I know, though, that it has caused upheaval in so many lives that I doubt those impacted would call this fun.  I feel especially bad for those who woke up to see a friend and someone they respected ideologically suddenly also be an opponent in a primary.

In our office, we're now head-down putting the districts together.  We have 16 employees and while that may seem like a lot, each are specialized and spread pretty thin.  We have one mapping person and one person who has an end-to-end understanding of all our systems.

This is the screen projected by the mapping software
our team was using in a conference room Friday as they
made sure exact precincts were placed
in the proper Senate districts.

Those two locked up on Friday, are likely working as I type, and will be sorting all of this out for several more days.  They have to ensure that each precinct is placed in the proper district.  We have about 450 precincts and likely will have more because the maps split several precincts.

They finished four of the county's nine Senate districts on Friday.  They'll have the State Board of Education and House districts to do this week.

From there, we can begin placing voters in their correct jurisdictions and create ballots.  We need to mail military ballots within 2 weeks and we should meet that goal, but that's just the first milestone.

We'll need to create our ballot order to give our printer time to prepare and mail back about 150,000 ballots.  Permanent sick and disabled ballots, and ballots for those who already have requested an advance ballot, will be in the mail July 18.  We send a postcard to each voter, also, and that will go out the week before.

We're gathering a waiting list of map requests, and the maps take considerable time to print.  We should be in a position to print maps by the end of the month, but also have about a thousand we need to print for the August election--such as the "Vote Here if You Live Here" maps.

At some point, our mapping priority will have to be on the maps we need to administer the election.  If you're among those anticipating ordering some maps, I encourage you to call as soon as possible to get in line.

All that being said (or at least typed), we're nearing the other side of the work created by the census.