tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79230942247204191142024-03-05T23:02:11.961-08:00Election DiaryAn Election Administrator's Perspective on Preparation for Presidential Elections and Beyond.Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-3365217791232817452023-03-11T20:24:00.005-08:002023-03-12T12:57:26.413-07:00Strength...the Kryptonite to Cancer, and Everything Else<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYx4vKr7taVcN_huJHdATA78wrjQwUOtLk0nR24tj50v7aA-oXxt8A_SRcrm33txK0XESjyMQ1zKMssu2xl9aF5Fs347RL5Am7aozDyI1NRUO6ZiS1HV5oMp9HGD6P08RcTR9JD4Xy42i12Nb9UU_n-Nw9Ks2wG1Ns9q5luOBrkklacDl57EuuE5mv/s480/flowers.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYx4vKr7taVcN_huJHdATA78wrjQwUOtLk0nR24tj50v7aA-oXxt8A_SRcrm33txK0XESjyMQ1zKMssu2xl9aF5Fs347RL5Am7aozDyI1NRUO6ZiS1HV5oMp9HGD6P08RcTR9JD4Xy42i12Nb9UU_n-Nw9Ks2wG1Ns9q5luOBrkklacDl57EuuE5mv/w150-h200/flowers.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>This a follow-up to the previous post, “Cancer!”<br />I’m mindful that this blog isn’t a personal column but
rather a behind-the-scenes view of election administration, but an update is
relevant for a couple of reasons.<br />First, Dear Reader, never discount the power of love and prayers.<br />The visible responses on LinkedIn and Facebook are only a
small portion of the “Save Ferris” moments me and my family experienced. <br />I entered this process determined to be as physically strong
as possible and of the right attitude for a recovery. I knew I was on a conveyor belt about to take
me through something of which I had no perspective or control.<br />The outpouring I received was inspiring.<br />The first jaw-dropping experience came days into my cancer diagnosis,
before the blog post.<br />I signed up to participate in a half-marathon, part of the
Bismarck Marathon in September, to get the early-bird best rate just after
January 1. It would be my first half-marathon
in 7 years.<br />When I was met with the cancer diagnosis a few days later, I
realized that training for a half-marathon was a longshot at best. I emailed the event organizer to ask if I
could, if necessary, move my registration to a 5k or 10k, and explained why I
was making the request. <br />The answer I quickly received, from Will, one of the managers
of the race and the contact for sending me my swag after running the “Santa Run”
virtually in December, was, “of course.”<div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPrzFr9pTFMyrdRjUqZLGTCXcMY3IoeeTSzcdH0ohS2wy83fhrQwSVHL2mmHzmQkudLVFen68aMCnHG3aXHSevMpKZtzE4taEBrjohb1ahEaDcK5bKQJ6Hk0fThilHqcDTqXWGTJ0M_9lWZIFD2ENnwRxP8nShrCTMA5DcveWllNMwS9UjmaroTQ4/s480/card.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPrzFr9pTFMyrdRjUqZLGTCXcMY3IoeeTSzcdH0ohS2wy83fhrQwSVHL2mmHzmQkudLVFen68aMCnHG3aXHSevMpKZtzE4taEBrjohb1ahEaDcK5bKQJ6Hk0fThilHqcDTqXWGTJ0M_9lWZIFD2ENnwRxP8nShrCTMA5DcveWllNMwS9UjmaroTQ4/w150-h200/card.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>The next day, my wife answered the door and was greeted with
flowers and a card from Will, expressing best wishes for the challenge ahead.<br /><i>Keep in mind this was from someone whom I have never
met. <br /></i>And that, Dear Reader, is North Dakota!<br />Coworkers were amazing, both at the Secretary of State’s
office and at North Dakota’s IT Department, where my wife works. My children, their families, and my
mother-in-law all provided tremendous support and inspiration.<br />Then, there are all of you who read the previous post and
commented or sent notes. That all made a
huge difference.<br /><br /></div><div>So, here’s the rundown and result:<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Diagnosis, January 5,</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Blog post, February 4,</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Surgery, February 8,</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Released from the hospital, February 11</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Surgeon follow-up March 3 and Oncologist
follow-up March 5, resulting in an “all clear,” and,</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">March 8, one month from the day of the surgery,
I ran a slow 5k on the treadmill.</span></li></ul><blockquote><b><i>These two months have just about been the longest year
of my life.</i></b></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-QbQ8pN5vNO5fyM6V1yaYIK9sCMXu26d7Bb6pUIBwbgP-FMeRaHeQniK3TkPTv9VeTjR6BQzi-dNlz3t-KpKmvD37a97a7Orc1HjQyOkbMBHeM_s8mte8c11QdALNzDxva7_1OzwIz-X6OSjXmkcIJu-RsOZqkelHOJ7IVSEI3d5pddy3jHODve4/s640/Marilyn.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-QbQ8pN5vNO5fyM6V1yaYIK9sCMXu26d7Bb6pUIBwbgP-FMeRaHeQniK3TkPTv9VeTjR6BQzi-dNlz3t-KpKmvD37a97a7Orc1HjQyOkbMBHeM_s8mte8c11QdALNzDxva7_1OzwIz-X6OSjXmkcIJu-RsOZqkelHOJ7IVSEI3d5pddy3jHODve4/s320/Marilyn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The surgery was robotic, but still fairly brutal, resulting
in 19 inches, or about 1/3, of my large intestine removed and three nights in the hospital before
getting the nod from the on-call surgeon to allow me to go home in time to see
the Chiefs win the Super Bowl.<br />Consistent with the “behind the scenes,” theme, I asked the
surgery team as I was wheeled in to the operating room, if they could take
photos of the robotic tool that was used for my four-hour surgery. I have no idea why it is called Marilyn.<br />I now will have regular CT scans and bloodwork to monitor
things, but no chemotherapy!<br />So, there it is. Your
prayers, gifts, and messages enabled me to push this cancer away!<br />Still, as I’ve typed here often, cancer, in my view, comes calling
for those who work in elections.<br />As I convalesced, I was presented with a potential career
transition, and I made the decision to make myself harder to find for any
potential future Cancer visit.<br />I’m moving out of elections, still in North Dakota state
government, next week.<br />What better time than a moment of upheaval to keep making
life decisions…<br />In addition, I have many plans for either eventual or
mythical books to write, and these last few years can be summed up by my
working title, “How the Federal Government Destroyed Voter Confidence, and What
Can Be Done to Get it Back.”<br />That’s because everything in election administration eventually
is politicized.<br />I recall going to the Election Center’s Joint Election Official
Legislative Conference in 2006, where then Executive Director Doug Lewis held
up a USA Today with a front-page article explaining that both major political
parties were targeting Secretaries of State races.<br />Doug lamented what a bad indicator this was for
elections. I was fairly new to elections and “then me” hadn’t yet
seen what “now me” has. Doug was spot on,
and partisanship in election administration has become sequentially worse each
year.<br />Much of the harm, in my view, has come from Washington D.C.,
Congress and Non-Government Organizations, social media, activists who work under the cover of alternative media, tech companies, and industry consultants and experts who move from organization to organization
and require industry angst to appear relevant.<br />Finally, while on the subject of Secretaries, and me moving
on from elections, I’ve had the privilege of working under five of them:<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh—there is
no greater example of a throwback Secretary in my view then Ron; I never heard
him saying anything political.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Kansas Secretary of State Chris Biggs—the only
Democratic Secretary in this list, and he believed in me, reappointing me just
before the August 2010 primary, amidst those in his party suggesting the need
to have “their person” in that role.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">He
saw the partisan aspect and also understood the impact it would have upon the
upcoming elections, and, regardless of the fact it involved me, made the right
decision, I believe.</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach—few Secretaries
have nationwide name recognition, and probably none have the same name recognition
as Kris.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I’ve known him personally, seen
him with his five daughters, met his wife and mother, and will attest that he
is a tremendous father.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I’m not oblivious
to his public persona, but even to that I will point out that his biggest
failing seems to be that he says what he will do if elected, and when elected
he does it, so while many are unhappy with those outcomes, he has fulfilled
what he said he would do when running for office.</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger—Al was
in office for 30 years and, much like Ron, is a living example of what a good
Secretary is.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Al was incredibly selfless
and humble, and he managed this agency to great stability over a long period of
time.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">In elections, no news is good
news, and his goal always was for the election outcomes, not the administration
of elections, to be the story after election day.</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">North Dakota Secretary of State Michael Howe—my decision
to move to a new position outside of elections was difficult because of how
impressive Michael has been since taking office on January 1.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">In my years in elections, I’ve interacted
with more than 100 Secretaries, and those who are successful get their fingernails
dirty in the details of elections.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">He’s
done that, and he’s a quick learner, and a strong leader.</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">North Dakota is lucky to have him in this
role. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">He also was super supportive of me after I received my cancer diagnosis just 3 business days into his time here.</span></li></ol><span style="text-indent: -24px;">So, i</span><span style="text-indent: -24px;">t’s adios. I’m
not sure what will come of this blog. I
have another mythical book title, “Now I’m Allowed to Have an Opinion,” and I
have that domain, in fact. <br /></span>In the meantime, this post began by praising the power of
love and prayers.<br />For those of you in election administration—and for all
human beings, I suppose—I point to Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians
(I Thessalonians 5:11):<br /> <i><b> “Therefore,
encourage one another, and build each other up, as in fact you are doing.”<br /></b></i><br />There isn’t one single restrainer in front of election
administrators.<br />In fact, those restrainers essentially come from a vocal and
bullying minority, or partisan-who-pretend-to-not-be-partisan members of the
election administration community. <br />Collectively, though, any restrainer, or group of restrainers,
can be overcome. These last two months are
proof of that.<br />Encourage one another. Build each other up. <br />As the lyrics to one of my favorite songs go,
“It’s so easy to laugh, so easy to hate.
It takes strength to be gentle and kind.”<br />Show strength. Share
strength. Celebrate strength in
others. That’s the way to persevere, and
the non-vocal majority of voters deserve and will appreciate that effort.<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-44845705682112399662023-02-04T11:21:00.003-08:002023-02-05T10:50:01.350-08:00Cancer<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKaZmyanAOk7IlDWsqtfrF_QjZMMoPvlvKW4euJ3FW3HrSqYFmnnHkbHd_or5Aj4OSXCwir8H0OOQPTlwtV3W00NxuEObuFSkij41w-jxf5Ky6B6dp-MMDZRlZhk69fXUbPQ-LdeeETnlvJ_pVwKgmJSRev2ZD7KAbJ29K1l59QXJg2XmVUJbtwZTV/s879/ribbon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="615" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKaZmyanAOk7IlDWsqtfrF_QjZMMoPvlvKW4euJ3FW3HrSqYFmnnHkbHd_or5Aj4OSXCwir8H0OOQPTlwtV3W00NxuEObuFSkij41w-jxf5Ky6B6dp-MMDZRlZhk69fXUbPQ-LdeeETnlvJ_pVwKgmJSRev2ZD7KAbJ29K1l59QXJg2XmVUJbtwZTV/s320/ribbon.jpg" width="224" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I have
cancer.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That
diagnosis came January 5 of this year, and I can’t type it any more plainly.<br /><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">After a
routine process and colonoscopy, a cancerous tumor was discovered in my large
intestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With surgery planned for this
week, indications from other testing is that the cancer hasn’t metastasized
into other organs in my body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Hopefully,
the surgery will result in elimination of the cancer, but that won’t be known
until after surgery.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Working 18
years in election administration, I suppose, it was my time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve written here before and often of the physical toll
elections take on the people who run them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This blog
was created as a behind-the-scenes account of election administration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would not be true to the intent of the blog
to not discuss this so directly and openly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">My
predecessor in Johnson County is a cancer survivor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Both
assistant election commissioners at the Johnson County Election office when I
joined, both who had worked at the office for years, had new cancer diagnoses early
during my tenure.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">One of
them eventually died while still serving as assistant election
commissioner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another employee, promoted
to the same position, found he had lung cancer in the spring of 2014 and died
days before the November election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Sedgwick County Election Commissioner, who served at much of the same time as I
was in Johnson County, also had cancer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Thing is,
with the talk of election officials facing abusive threats from election deniers,
there is no denying that the real threat to election officials is the constant
stress they feel when administering elections.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The personal threats add to that, of course, but that’s been going on since “Black Box
Voting,” a book and HBO special that called out specific election
administrators when, in my view, they were doing their jobs under the stress
that occurs with election administration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The “naming names” of career election administrators, nearly universally
paid much less than their peers and colleagues in local government, was about
the lowest blow someone could take.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Election
administrators work at the expense of their own health to ensure the election
is administered as close to perfectly as humanly possible. There is no “close
enough for government work,” in elections.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
Internet and social media have fueled that stress, and long-term election administrators
who have fought for resources often hear as a reason they are denied, “You’re
doing a great job.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Resources come after
a meltdown or a crisis, and election administrators aren’t going to let that
happen, even if the impact is their health.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Politicians,
members of Congress, and former presidential candidates have fanned flames that
cause more distress.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Recent
blog posts here have tried to stay out of politics, but the political environment for election administration is very simply destructive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Al Gore
lost the 2000 presidential election and after what seemed like an excessive
protracted contest, he walked away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
wasn’t in election administration at the time, but I know I felt that he had
created division in our country, and I wished he had exited sooner.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Now, after
the last two presidential elections, his behavior seems much more admirable, to
me at least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea what 2024
will bring in terms of the final presidential candidates or the political
factors leading to the election, but, Dear Reader, I think we all feel that the
outcome will be contested by the losing candidate and party supporters.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That’s the
backdrop local election officials will enter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many will decide to exit the profession this year because of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turnover always occurs more in an “off” year,
with experienced administrators leaving when they are needed most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They leave because they know what is coming.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Local and
state election official turnover nationwide is more than 30 percent
annually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have some election offices
in North Dakota, for instance, where the chief election official changed
between the June and November elections in 2022, and even a couple cases where
the top post changed twice in that time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Bench
strength in elections was lost long ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The need for Quick Start guides at the Election Assistance Commission,
as well as training and patience for those new in the profession, has never
been greater.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">As an
aside, I often think of the Maricopa County (Arizona) Recorder Helen
Purcell, who lost in her primary in 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Helen had decades of service and was well-respected among her
colleagues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her term would end at the
end of 2016, voters had told her they wanted someone different in the role, and
she was left to administer an incredibly stressful 2016 presidential
election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Imagine
losing the primary in the summer, not for a legislative position, but the
actual position of administering elections. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine the disappointment, yet also being expected to lead the administration of, up to that point, what was the most
stressful presidential election in anyone’s memory.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That’s
service right there.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She didn’t
quit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She probably should have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never talked with Helen about this, but
I have great admiration for her because of what she did in 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I’m not attempting to stir anything up
at all, but I do wonder if any of the storyline in Arizona, 2020 and beyond,
would have been different if voters would have renewed her service in 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Unlike
Helen, many election administrators find their body quits on them before they
quit the profession.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That, at
least, is a piece of counter-point to the thought election administration leads
to cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Election administrators have
generally been in the profession for a long time, leading to a simple fact that
cancer arrives more frequently as people age.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">When I
started in elections in 2005, I replaced someone many regard as one of the
greatest ever in the profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At my swearing
in, I stated, “I’m coming to a position where the process is the star.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Long-time election
administrators treat the election process as a piece of art, always polishing
or refining it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New election administrators
often are thrown into the job now without that existing process structure, or
the wisdom to know when to avoid the temptation that they know better than
those in the position before.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That’s the
new cancer in election administration—the turnover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a new group of election administrators
lining up with 2024 being their first federal election, let alone their first
presidential election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the profession’s
sake, we need a good number of them to still be leading elections heading in
2040, and that can only begin by providing resources, support, and protection
to lead today.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-79262179912523829412022-10-31T10:49:00.003-07:002023-01-16T11:14:38.981-08:002000 Mules Review Posted on Amazon, but Later Removed, and Now It's Back!<p> Amazon.com actually pulled my review of 2000 Mules.</p><p>Here is how it appeared before it was taken down, below. My two purchases of the book were at the Bismarck Barnes and Noble, and the review was taken down because I was not a "Verified Purchaser." I was surprised that I was able to upload it two weeks later, and it stuck. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1OOHQO56JN10H/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1684514460" target="_blank">The link on Amazon is here:https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1OOHQO56JN10H/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1684514460</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3gWQHq1MEZv7Gfb3X7WmtOXoNFmhuiycjrdBl877WSXMY0iVsndBCV2XiwhJOkewvi1kSawYehNkiNHlyPMrhRt6wk9LTULhSFAHRpRYFWX2khfAWtaAWWGROZIENtjX7KS5ApKBDN1PkwisEsnHP_v3WeQ5ec_aQfxGZ3jCREKtXDnQJ1yBoc6ek/s963/2000%20Mules%20Review%20Pulled.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="963" data-original-width="830" height="702" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3gWQHq1MEZv7Gfb3X7WmtOXoNFmhuiycjrdBl877WSXMY0iVsndBCV2XiwhJOkewvi1kSawYehNkiNHlyPMrhRt6wk9LTULhSFAHRpRYFWX2khfAWtaAWWGROZIENtjX7KS5ApKBDN1PkwisEsnHP_v3WeQ5ec_aQfxGZ3jCREKtXDnQJ1yBoc6ek/w606-h702/2000%20Mules%20Review%20Pulled.PNG" width="606" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-39846531536229964622022-10-28T07:26:00.004-07:002023-01-16T13:46:18.371-08:00No Modems Here!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A guy crossing the country these days in the name of voter fraud, Douglas Frank, recently visited North Dakota with some tall tales.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For one, he claims to have a device that will prove the ES&S DS200 contains a modem.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHwAIGSChUBoGUGPKytOE4SONS238WKReayLVFdpz70XK0zd8Azt6UuFf2mFJM215YEZR8_CiDqFmXPAtNDcuDxViErhfw7ndD9gTsn54oRBTXWRHBzEAZV33aidt2zN1S4x5KKvS_bhu6AUbJ4Lxyq7qc1pKmztYYVfgJm_NL1X7y-j5dQnI9k4Hv/s1004/61l-2OpLOHL._SL1004_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1004" data-original-width="889" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHwAIGSChUBoGUGPKytOE4SONS238WKReayLVFdpz70XK0zd8Azt6UuFf2mFJM215YEZR8_CiDqFmXPAtNDcuDxViErhfw7ndD9gTsn54oRBTXWRHBzEAZV33aidt2zN1S4x5KKvS_bhu6AUbJ4Lxyq7qc1pKmztYYVfgJm_NL1X7y-j5dQnI9k4Hv/s320/61l-2OpLOHL._SL1004_.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>That device is a <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit;">EMF Meter,Advanced GQ EMF-390 Multi-Field Electromagnetic Radiation 3-in-1 EMF ELF RF meter, 5G Cell Tower Smart meter Wifi Signal Detector RF up to 10GHz with Data Logger and 2.5Ghz Spectrum Analyzer. I know, because our office has one.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit;">I don't know if Mr. Frank knows how the unit works, but I'm not an RF expert, so I sought one out.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.tvtechnology.com/opinion/learning-about-rf" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://www.tvtechnology.com/opinion/learning-about-rf" target="_blank">His name is Doug Lung, and this is a link to one of his recent columns on RF technology in general.</a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">Our staff conducted a late-night call with Mr. Lung, not for any other reason than the fact he lives in Hawaii, and we wanted to respect his busy workday. We learned quite a bit about RF technology and later made this video using the same device Mr. Frank carries to demonstrate that our scanners do not have modems.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">Mr. Frank is welcome to join me at any time with any DS200 scanner in the state so he can see with his own eyes, with his own RF device, that our DS200 scanners do not have modems. I type "join me," because I also will gladly show him three other ways to quickly demonstrate that the scanners do not have modems.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Mr. Frank also has falsely stated, citing a letter from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) unrelated to certification in North Dakota, that "proves" our DS200s have modems. As the former EAC Executive Director who certified many of the voting systems across the country, I am extremely familiar with the exact, and again unrelated proceeding, that Mr. Frank mentions. He has not shown anyone the "North Dakota" letter, however, because such a letter never applied to North Dakota or was sent to North Dakota.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzI8HKpEkPQ2YQW1gL7VxP9Lng_nXmdN2xFV9twbpVZsxx3cdiBcjGsCd5OOaYA79A1Zo8ctu8nORUrd6VmGw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /> <p></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-4619878905715819712022-10-19T10:50:00.000-07:002022-10-19T10:50:04.495-07:00Ballot Image Audits<p> This is not a traditional post, but it does involve "behind the scenes" work of election administration.</p><p>There are various types of post-election audits. Nearly every state--including North Dakota--have some type of post-election audit to demonstrate that the tabulation from the election was correct.</p><p><a href="https://player.vimeo.com/video/757284892?h=3ae2f1a85a&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479" target="_blank">Here is a link to a short video that describes one method, and one I've been fond of since learning about it in 2017:</a> </p><p>Then, I was working at the Election Assistance Commission, not at a jurisdiction that could utilize the method you will see in the video. The voting system in my previous jurisdiction, in Kansas, did not utilize ballot image scanners (they do now).</p><p>I'm putting this link here just as a way for readers to become familiar with another type of auditing process.</p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-78518064990946937392022-10-10T14:34:00.005-07:002022-10-18T09:02:05.840-07:00Motels and Mules Update<p><b><i><a href="http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/2022/05/motels-and-mules.html" target="_blank"> Editor's Note with the post from May.</a></i></b></p><p>I have since watched the movie <u>2000 Mules</u> and even have a copy of the book, contraband because it was pulled by the publisher and now will be released October. 25.</p><p>I purchased my copy at the Bismarck Barnes and Noble on October 1. It was the only copy, and they likely missed the memo to pull it from the shelves.</p><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/08/1121648290/a-publisher-abruptly-recalled-the-2-000-mules-election-denial-book-npr-got-a-cop" target="_blank">NPR also got a copy, and you can read the review by clicking this sentence.</a></p><p>Regardless, seeing the movie and reading the book, if anything, just reinforced how ridiculous the claims by True the Vote and Dinesh D'Souza are. The book follows the movie, almost scene-by-scene, but includes a new final chapter.</p><p>Still, if anyone wants to embrace the concept in the book, summarized in that final chapter, I'm personally prepared to respectfully disagree but let them have that win. From the book,</p><p><i></i></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i>"Joe Biden is president because the Democrats stole the election from Trump, and they did it through organized cheating in the main urban areas of at least five key states."</i></h2><p></p><p>If people really believe that--and I don't--take your stubborn mule-headed argument up with those urban areas. </p><p>Why this is discussed in North Dakota, or Kansas, or nearly anywhere for that matter, simply reinforces my opinions in my <a href="http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/2022/05/motels-and-mules.html">May post.</a></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-8054018954829607402022-07-05T09:14:00.021-07:002022-07-06T12:42:23.544-07:00Oh, the Humanity!<p>Last week, the North Dakota State Canvass Board certified
the results of the June 14 statewide election.<br /><br />As a point of order, each county certified its results on
June 27.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The state canvass certifies the
roll-up of the 53 counties.<br /><br />It’s typical to assume that November general elections are
more complicated than the primaries because of the turnout and national
awareness, but I think most election administrators find the primaries more
exhausting—they usually are more complicated in terms of voting laws and
involve more unique ballot styles.<br /><br />One trending observation I’ve had, not just with North Dakota but
nationwide:<br /><br />In 2016, when Russian involvement was the election topic of
the day, it was common to stress that elections were ran individually by more
than 3,000 jurisdictions, creating a unique quilt of security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that the elections were ran
separately provided a natural firewall against the ability for widespread outside
interference.<br /><br />That’s true, but it’s also true, for instance during my time
in Kansas, that our voters in Johnson County had different experiences than
those in Douglas or Sedgwick Counties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We used different equipment and had different early voting options, for
example.<br /><br />In fact, a Congressional district crossed into Douglas
County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Douglas County was predominantly
a Democratic county; Johnson was predominantly Republican.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were allowed to provide early voting outside
of our office (satellite locations). Douglas did not have this legislative
authority.<br /><br />I felt, and expressed at the time, that this legal disparity
could favor a Republican candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over
time, the law changed to allow more counties to have satellite advance voting.<br /><br />That’s an example of a growing trend to do more to
standardize the voter experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
aren’t McDonalds, but a polling place in, say, Cass County, should run the same
as in Burleigh County—at least as much as possible.<br /><br /><b><i><u>The disparity also comes because elections represent a human business.</u></i></b><br /><br />That’s been lost lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/2012/02/perfect-elections.html" target="_blank">There may be no thing as a perfect election, as the election administrator cliche goes, because humans are involved.</a> <a href="http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/2012/02/perfect-elections.html" target="_blank">That's not to say, however, we don't strive for perfection--zero defects was the phrase I stressed to our election workers when serving as a local election official.</a> Election administrators are always chasing the dream of a perfect election.<br /><br />But, people make mistakes, and there were some anecdotally reported one-offs
across the state in this election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact,
while we hear the refrain of getting rid of machines and hand-counting ballots,
none of the issues reported in North Dakota involved voting machines.<br /><br />That latest revelation and proof point, once again, that voting machines performed properly isn't what some activists want to hear or believe. It leads me to believe—and hear me out, Dear Reader—that I think I’ve identified
the ultimate win-win for those who want humans, rather than machines, counting votes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />Machines have proven to have fewer mistakes than humans, yet some people steadfastly maintain they want hand-counting of ballots.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabsUIzA8THheEPlLomyfqxHv1TcNgDiBiLu1JcJswMg4wwsWPNiuRNtduFnAzEtDPCef9_nLrD-F1RVjWd7yjnbyzAHQNFbMKqMopSZm99ZCEu42ypDgaR4Jpa2Tjr8K3i-1IxS5GvkRRLtz4gsWlqIo3cWHo-5Q6zdgMYTsddQW3797nJ5sj6Hr5/s225/human%20league.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="224" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabsUIzA8THheEPlLomyfqxHv1TcNgDiBiLu1JcJswMg4wwsWPNiuRNtduFnAzEtDPCef9_nLrD-F1RVjWd7yjnbyzAHQNFbMKqMopSZm99ZCEu42ypDgaR4Jpa2Tjr8K3i-1IxS5GvkRRLtz4gsWlqIo3cWHo-5Q6zdgMYTsddQW3797nJ5sj6Hr5/s1600/human%20league.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>So, how about the voting equipment manufacturers create
androids or robots that hand count the ballots?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or, maybe, just turn the rollers on scanners into automated hands….<br /><br />The bigger point is that calls for hand-counts, no machines,
and other changes are really calls for election reform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure, exactly, what election reform
truly means, but it has been a buzz phrase since the Help America Vote Act of 2002
was passed.<br /><br />(It's hard to believe, as an interlude, that the battle cry related to elections at that time was that we <i><b>needed voting machines for accuracy</b></i>).<br /><br />I do know the root of the need for election reform then—it
was the 2000 presidential election, not decided on election night, leaving many
to have reduced confidence in the election.<br /><br />That confidence continues to erode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the old adage of, “Lose the game, blame
the referee,” and the cycle has led to election law changes.<br /><br /><a href="http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/2021/06/masks-and-gloves-off.html" target="_blank">The feelings related to voter confidence, thanks to a myriad of social issues, social media, and federal government overreach, are real. </a>I submit that if there were no such thing as voter fraud—or
concerns of election fraud—there would not be so many state and federal
statutes related to the conduct of the elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />Thus, likely, the call for election reform, based
on the number of existing election laws, is a tale as old as time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can even hear Angela Lansbury singing the
song in the background as I type, although most election administrators would
appreciate a little more Beauty these days after the Beasts the elections of
the last few years have represented.<br /><br />Changes to election laws generally require some type of bipartisan
support to get passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in statehouses where one
party has overall control, factions within the party still often result in compromises
and more moderate changes to the laws.<br /><br />And here we are in 2022, where election reformers call themselves
patriots looking out for election integrity, but they do as much, if not more,
to erode voter confidence than the harm presumably caused by the issues to which
they complain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, I think some
of the concerns these individuals raise have validity, but back to Cliché Town, surely they know it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar...<br /><br />Shouldn’t we all step back and focus on the ultimate goal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t we all want predictable election
processes, rooted in law?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t we all
have a responsibility to leave the elections process better than it was before
us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t it seem that if there is a time for state governments to fund the necessary resources to make this
happen, it’s now?<br /><br />The narrative needle must move from chest-pumping election
integrity phrases to meaningful election reform--true election administration modernization achieved by working together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> In my view, we</span> could benefit from a “statute audit,” a
comb through the statutes and a report to all stakeholders that shows areas of
inconsistency or concern that could be addressed, thoughtfully, by the legislature to raise
voter confidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Probably, all states could benefit from that, as well as the federal government. </span>That seems
non-controversial.<br /><br />Borrowing a phrase from a president before the 2000
presidential election, and turning it to apply here, “There's nothing wrong with
election administration that can’t be fixed with what is right with election administration.”<br /><br />Elections are ran by humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Humans pass laws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans, as much
as humanly possible, follow them.<br /><br />It’s time to realize we have human—not machine—issues, and
we must all address the human issues by being, well, human.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-18591157462404559702022-05-13T13:21:00.010-07:002022-10-11T06:53:10.460-07:00Motels and Mules<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">This post
is full of confessions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">First, I
confess to not seeing the new documentary, <u>2000 Mules</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say this
because I believe many people are speaking about the movie but also have not
been willing to pay $19.99 to rent or $29.99 to buy the movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect many who speak about the movie also
have not actually watched the movie, although they may not be as forthright as
me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiWUE-8IyPEuiWEi_9C7oTGo_QScdNB_ZYJ44I0zja-NVzJGqUfViCU8QfdznXFr8R1NyWPXbTHDhkAcS7dn8fylf42ScNpbppqlnLamNKOe_aoibptDEnFGXprDlDYrrz68n_Exbo5XXIOIfplcI0yLlCSwS0jrTZU75iVBZw0RAc2DYjbsP_ktA/s1326/Snag_500cbd9.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="1326" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiWUE-8IyPEuiWEi_9C7oTGo_QScdNB_ZYJ44I0zja-NVzJGqUfViCU8QfdznXFr8R1NyWPXbTHDhkAcS7dn8fylf42ScNpbppqlnLamNKOe_aoibptDEnFGXprDlDYrrz68n_Exbo5XXIOIfplcI0yLlCSwS0jrTZU75iVBZw0RAc2DYjbsP_ktA/s320/Snag_500cbd9.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">(I’ve seen
one person who says this movie is “proof positive the 2020 election was stolen,”
but whom I doubt has seen it, actually post a “See it Free” link, but the link
doesn’t lead to anyone seeing it for free.” The trailer plays, and then the
viewer is led to a paywall).</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Still, we
are a society on the go, so actually </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">seeing a movie</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> these days isn’t
necessarily a prerequisite to </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">reviewing a movie.</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I’ve seen the trailer and the documentary
videos about the movie.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">2000 Mules
is cinematic portrayal of findings by the leaders of “True the Vote.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know plenty about True the Vote but my
latest experiences with True the Vote have come from numerous open records
requests they have made of North Dakota in the past two years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These requests have been similar, and
involved voter registration, which North Dakota does not have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That makes
sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fairness, the organization
isn’t called True the Registration, or True the Voter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently, only the vote is in their truth
wheelhouse.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">2000
Mules</span></u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> reminds me of
the movie <u>200 Motels</u> by Frank Zappa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m a Zappa fan, but like <u>2000 Mules</u>, <u>200 Motels</u> is an often-discussed-but-seldom-seen
movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a classic movie, but also
one I have never seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have the
soundtrack, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Zappa is long-dead
but I suspect he knew as much about North Dakota voters as True the Vote).</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Tx1B-tf66GUuHdHJ7mZQrdka8jv8kS4GXCfTA0q3V5qhTFUztUezxjB_bscEikK_tmDFLgKdVlJkFHYu-QRXV-g6goPXJLzK4Blx15Vac8NDr1pv5MQQlM8Rr-hdDvME5O5qh1gDVv2OakZJ5cOSZhTKRRvAXexTvP2bSOZBRJq7tkgWocaUGDzG/s303/200_Motels_poster.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="220" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Tx1B-tf66GUuHdHJ7mZQrdka8jv8kS4GXCfTA0q3V5qhTFUztUezxjB_bscEikK_tmDFLgKdVlJkFHYu-QRXV-g6goPXJLzK4Blx15Vac8NDr1pv5MQQlM8Rr-hdDvME5O5qh1gDVv2OakZJ5cOSZhTKRRvAXexTvP2bSOZBRJq7tkgWocaUGDzG/s1600/200_Motels_poster.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">According
to Wikipedia, <u>200 Motels</u> has been “dubbed a ‘surrealistic’ documentary.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I assume
the same can be said for <u>2000 Mules</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
premise of <u>2000 Mules</u> comes down to the belief that ballot drop boxes
stole the 2020 presidential election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The dropboxes enabled ballots to be deposited and later counted, and
apparently, the maker of <u>2000 Mules</u> thinks counting ballots is evil.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">True the
Vote purchased location data tied to cellphones and created intricate backstories
of how people crossed paths with dropboxes in five key swing states in the 2020
election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This location data is combined
with some security video showing people putting ballots in the dropboxes,
sometimes as the dropboxes were overflowing, and ballots fell to the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This juxtaposition apparently creates some
sort of evil narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">You know
how accurate location data is on your cell phone—Google tells me that I visited
a water park 100 times last winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(That’s
half of <u>200 Motels</u>!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, I’ve never
been to the water park.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I actually
drove by it on my way to the gym down the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, I’ve never been at that gym, so says Google.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">True the
Vote claims that this data and images in five swing states prove that the wrong
presidential candidate was elected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
<u>200 Motels</u>, though, the storyline just shows unconnected nonsense
vignettes, (so says Wikipedia of the Zappa movie).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In fact,
while discussing how evil it is that these dropboxes have been fed ballots, the
video supposedly raises the concern with the security of the dropboxes,
essentially also suggesting that ballots could be taken from the boxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, unconnected nonsense.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2022/05/05/fact-check-gaping-holes-in-election-fraud-claims-of-2000-mules-movie/" target="_blank">The
Associated Press did a good job pointing out that the movie stumbles.</a><a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2022/05/05/fact-check-gaping-holes-in-election-fraud-claims-of-2000-mules-movie/" target="_blank"> </a> Others have as well, and the very
people that the movie is hoping to reach—media pundits—haven’t embraced the
movie. Beyond that, if the facts were so
telling, and this was such a bombshell discovery, exactly why would that lead
the creators to take several months and create a movie to make money, as opposed
to exposing crimes to law enforcement?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
creators claim they did approach authorities and couldn’t get traction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My suspicion is that no traction was gained
because, at the AP says, nothing was proven.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">My further
suspicion is that the producers saw the money and a willing audience of pillow
huggers who would applaud their actions and conclusions without really digging
into facts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s akin, in my view, to
Bev Harris of Black Box Voting in the early 2000s. Once she had an HBO documentary,
“Hacking Demoracy,” in 2006, her profile suddenly was nowhere to be found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fairness, she at least made her book
available for free, to generate interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>True the Vote, again, isn’t really True the Marketing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">(Bev
Harris also was referenced as a grandmother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Frank Zappa brought with him the Mothers of Invention. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Portraying yourself as a parent or grandparent
is always a good marketing move when questioning elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The True the Vote leaders are married but whether
or not they have any kids is not…..wait for it….apparent).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Fact is,
dropboxes didn’t swing the election, at least the way the creators say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that communities across the country
used private funds to install dropboxes didn’t make dropboxes evil.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">While we
are making confessions, I must confess that I am not necessarily a fan of
dropboxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do believe election offices
should have night drops, but dropboxes have become a broad term ranging from
night drops at the election office to remote ballot drop-off locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, dropboxes have emerged as yet
another political wedge topic, where the Left feels dropboxes represent a
constitutional right and the Right, well, actually read the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">As a local
election official, I saw the value of having a 24-hour ballot drop off at our
office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People forget to mail ballots
and bring them close to election day, and others feel more secure knowing the
ballot was received.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also don’t
trust that the United States Postal Service will competently get their ballot
delivered on time, and, as you can search and read in this blog, who would?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We are
used to seeing several dropboxes in our everyday life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are blue, unattended, and at many street
corners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Older readers might reference
these dropboxes by a different name--mailboxes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Letters
often are shoved into these mailboxes and then left unattended for hours before
one official comes and recovers the contents, with no check and balance of
another employee from another political party in attendance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">What I do
like about the notion of election dropboxes is the implied confession, at least
an admission, that this whole nationwide Vote At Home push is too much for the
United States Postal Service to handle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
dropboxes provide more assurance than the USPS that the ballots will actually
be delivered correctly and expeditiously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The USPS simply can’t handle the volume of mail that comes from
nationwide voting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who say
otherwise likely could create a different organization than the creators of
this video, perhaps naming themselves False the Vote.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The same
people pushing voting at home pushed the dropboxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same people who stress to you that vote
by mail is safe and secure, and who tell you that election mail is just a tiny amount
of the overall mail, also push dropboxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remember those public service announcements from the USPS that said you
must mail Christmas cards by December 15 to ensure they arrive by Christmas?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">(One of
the great things about the USPS and vote-by-mail, Dear Reader, is that, as
evidenced by the question above without a typed answer, often the jokes write
themselves).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">But back
to True the Vote’s problem with dropboxes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve tried
200 times—nay, 2000 times—but confess to not knowing their point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Is it that
ballots were delivered?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It is that
someone went and gathered ballots on behalf of voters to make sure the voters’
ballots were received?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could have
done this with stamps and a blue postal drop box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">(And, in
reality, the ballots likely would have arrived without a stamp; that’s a little
piece of election mail regulations most people don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The USPS is required to deliver those ballots
and charge the election office for postage).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Does True
the Vote actually have proof that ballots were prepared illegally?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That seems to be the truth that needs to be
sought.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In North
Dakota, no one can get a ballot without an application.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The application requires proof of residency
and proof of identity, and includes a signature requirement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ballots, once issued and returned,
contain a place for the voter to sign, and these two signatures are compared.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Vote-by-mail
state laws aren’t identical, but they are very similar in most states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some states issue mail ballots to all voters,
but those are vote-by mail states on the West Coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nearly all states require an application
first, and signatures and other identifying information are verified North
Dakota has famously been in the news lately for strictly following signature
comparisons.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Maybe people
who have seen the movie will be able to properly explain the conclusion we are
to be left with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For now, it appears to
simply be, “Dropboxes are bad.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">If so, I suspect
history will long remember <u>200 Motels</u> over <u>2000 Mules</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-35784706602838293812021-11-16T19:36:00.019-08:002022-01-10T08:25:08.696-08:00Admin Like It's 1999<p>This past week, some old friends and coworkers from my
pre-election days at Sprint arranged a reunion Zoom event.</p><p>It was great to greet faces I hadn’t seen for more than 20
years, talking about achievements from the 1990s. </p><p>We were part of Sprint’s Wholesale unit, previously the
Diversified Brands Group, and this group was incredibly successful. As a team, we saw annual revenues grow from
$500 million to $1.5 billion in a five-year period.</p><p>That was back when everyone had to emphasize, “That’s Billion,
with a ‘B’.” Funny, “Trillion with a
‘Truh’,” doesn’t have the same pop…</p><p>Anyway, our customers were resellers who sold under their
brand names. Our average customer billed more
than $1 million monthly. Sprint was the
number three retail player with less than 10 percent market share, so these
smaller players extended Sprint’s reach into underserved markets and, let’s
face it, when you only have 10 percent market share, “underserved,” is a given.</p><p>I worked with some brilliant people at that time and became
a branding expert. Really. I haven’t used “Expert” much in this blog, so
please know, Dear Reader, that I didn’t type this boastfully—well, a little
boastfully but just because branding seems so out-of-sync with elections.</p><p>(The last time “Expert” was used in ElectionDiary was when describing the
software “PDF Expert” in <a href="http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/search?q=expert">http://electiondiary-briandnewby.blogspot.com/search?q=expert</a>,
when talking about the suggestion that people sign electronically with a
stylus).</p><p>Branding may seem to have little to do with elections but there
has been a pretty big push of branding in elections over the past year.</p><p>“The Big Lie” was branding related to possible election
fraud claims by the former president.
What was especially troubling to me about this branding was how many
election administrators and members of the election community tweeted this
newfound branding, almost from the beginning, a year ago.</p><p>Back in my Sprint days, before the 2000 presidential
election, election administrators were clearly known by their political
impartiality. My biggest letdown from my
four-year career tour in Washington, D.C., was seeing that impartiality vanish
among so many I once believed to be impartial.</p><p>Further, I don’t think election administrators who tweeted
about the “Big Lie,” either felt, or certainly would admit, that they were
being partisan. As the former president might
tweet, “<i>Sad!</i>”</p><p>But then, we have another group who met up in South Dakota
in August, and they proceeded to refer to criticisms of the suspected voter
fraud (a fallout of the unfortunate claim that the election was the most secure
in history) also as “The Big Lie.”</p><p>Oh, come on!</p><p>You can’t brand something the same as the previous brand! Even Coke relaunched in the 1980s as New Coke.<br /></p><p>It reminds me, though, of a Los Angeles radio station with a
proud billboard of “Follow the Leader,” and then, just ¼ mile later on the
highway, another billboard with a competing radio station, “The Leader.”</p><p>As the kids say on Twitter, “H/T” to that.</p><p>(I’m fully aware actual kids don’t say much on Twitter. Kids are now on Tik Tok, or even a platform that traditional media hasn't even yet noticed, but remember, this
post began with an account of my career about 30 years ago, so, indeed, to me,
those actually are kids on Twitter.)</p><p>But now, we have “The Big Lie,” vs. “The Big Lie,” our own
modern-day “Spy vs. Spy” from Mad Magazine.</p><p>Who is making the lie?
Who is partisan?</p><p><b>All of them.</b></p><p>In times like this, I begin to hear REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin croon, “I’ve
forgotten what I started fighting for…”</p><p>The purpose of this post was two-fold, to lead to some facts
but first to call out how just plain awful this whole year-long discussion has
been.</p><p>I first postulate that a major source of distrust in
election results have come from a good thing gone bad—essentially a strength
that is now overdone.</p><p>Voting by mail is this century’s version of broadband
Internet (look at that Sprint tie-in…).
Users of dial-up internet in the 1990s who tried broadband encountered a major speed
and user experience difference, never to go back to dial-up.</p><p>Voting by mail has become popular and will be more popular
after 2020. We’ve seen enough results in
2021 nationwide to realize that people who tried (or were forced to try) voting
by mail liked it enough they aren’t going back.
This is a trend election administrators in Oregon, California,
Washington, and Colorado already have witnessed.</p><p>To accommodate for postal service delivery cycles and to
simply be voter-centric, states have extended the deadline for these ballots to
be received, to after election day.</p><p>Accommodating voters is a great thing. But as I’ve often said, we live in a 10
o’clock news society. People want
election results on election day, and they generally expect results announced
on election night to stay the same, except for those races “Too close to call.”</p><p>I’m not challenging the reasons for this (now, anyway—I will
in a future post), but as votes continue rolling like the numbers on a gasoline
pump for days after the election, it’s human nature to have some distrust over
what is occurring.</p><p>This would have been a great time to not turn to social
media. Instead, we had people who knew
better frothing things further.
Misinformation has flown heavily since early November 2020 and it has
come from all angles, including people in the election administration
community. In fact, I doubt their 2000
election administrator predecessors would have been tempted to utter or type
“The Big Lie,” in any context.</p><p>(<i>As a pause, I often thought how I would handle having to
say profanity in a movie if I was an actor.
I don’t think my mother would accept, “Acting!” as an excuse. Therefore, because I have typed “Big Lie” in
this post, I don’t think I can exempt myself from the following statement.</i>)</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">If you have used "The Big Lie" in association with the 2020 election, you are part of the polarization problem we are facing today.</span></i></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Back to the August gathering, where “The Big Lie” is now
branded to suggest results were altered in every single county in every state in
the 2020 election—as the claims of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election are
becoming increasingly revealed as fiction, so must these new claims.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://sos.nd.gov/files/uploaded_documents/memo-2020-results.pdf" target="_blank">We evaluated these claims in North Dakota, and other states have concluded the same thing. These, too, are lies.</a> Maybe COVID's social distancing is to blame--perhaps political opponents expected that they wouldn't be allowed to shake hands after the election, and then these feelings of isolation boiled inward, playing hideous tricks upon their political perception. </p><p style="text-align: left;">No. We saw this same tussle in 2018 in Georgia and elsewhere, 2016 with the presidential election, and among national elections in, well, every even year that began with a 20.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Whew, that was a long road to get to the point!</p><p style="text-align: left;">Was it?</p><p style="text-align: left;">The point
isn’t that the claims are proven to be false. Rather, high-profile members of the election administration
community lent their credible personal brands to the political branding of the
election, supporting political narratives. It was a formula tested in
2016 and proliferated in 2020. It has contributed, more than a little, to the overall divisiveness we are experiencing in elections and as a country today.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Maybe a good branding call for all of us in 2024, 25 years since we worried about the coming of Y2K, is to
“Party like it’s 1999," although by its nature, that reads partisan as well. "Admin like it's 1999" doesn't have the same ring to it.</p><p style="text-align: left;">But <u>1999, pre-2000</u>, that's a message. At least, that's a message here.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Election administration was a billion times simpler then
(<b>with a B</b>), and we could all use a billion times more Simple heading into 2022 and 2024.</p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpXCl40Xwa_5SIm_Fb1Lt7P9LO206mW6EDlCvRFAm_irO-mi3F760sjm_xQ-VqQSp6xZmtQxIcPBmKam_b7dZdPkrTQ4uCOzVZ4yi1VREsACciQqI4OXgWKrlBdTMQa1Smakv0oAWec4/s745/party2-600x344.png" style="display: inline; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="745" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpXCl40Xwa_5SIm_Fb1Lt7P9LO206mW6EDlCvRFAm_irO-mi3F760sjm_xQ-VqQSp6xZmtQxIcPBmKam_b7dZdPkrTQ4uCOzVZ4yi1VREsACciQqI4OXgWKrlBdTMQa1Smakv0oAWec4/w400-h228/party2-600x344.png" width="400" /></a></div></div>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-88300522667231518542021-08-02T10:10:00.021-07:002021-08-04T10:02:37.513-07:00Reinventing the Wheel<div>You may not remember that foreign actor intervention was the primary headline from the 2020 presidential election.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's because the headlines have been much different. Suspected foreign intervention was the theme of the 2016 election and I took personal criticism for focusing on what I considered, instead, to be the true election administration issues leading into the 2018 election--the fundamentals, the proverbial blocking and tackling of election administration..</div><div><br /></div><div>While suspected foreign intervention was a theme in 2016, that didn't even become a "thing" until early August of that year. Similarly, COVID didn't emerge as a potential backdrop to the last presidential election until March of 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>In training election workers, I often noted how we always train on the LAST issue, whether or not it was the most important. A training issue that emerged from an August election, for instance, usually didn't turn out to be the issue in November. We made sure of that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Never worry, that slip that wasn't signed by two election workers, or the proper completion of the provisional envelopes--we nailed that previous problem, only to have a new issue in the next election.</div><div><br /></div><div>Superstitions exists with elections. If we slayed a third potential operational dragon, pre-election, in Johnson County, Kansas, we took relief that the third and final issue was solved because, surely, three was the magic number of potential roadblocks in any election.</div><div><br /></div><div>Operational issues are always the most important election issues. There may be no such thing as a perfect election, but local election administrators will never accept such talk, always looking to prepare for a string of perfection.</div><div><br /></div><div>I remember sitting in the office of a local election official on election day in November 2018, where he told me foreign influence was the biggest issue election officials were facing then, that very day, and as we headed into 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Is it?," I asked. "Is it more important than making sure people today get to the right polling place, or they receive the proper ballot, or those who voted in advance get their ballots returned, or the college student who didn't get her ballot..."</div><div><br /></div><div>I maintained, and I think 2020 bore out, that the old and boring election operations issues are always the most important. In fact, if any of those issues arose, some may wonder if foreign intervention was the behind-the-scenes culprit. So, in a slight nod to that local administrator's point from 2018, suspected foreign intervention made operational issues even more important than ever.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not discounting the need to address foreign security threats, but if all politics are local, as the cliché goes, all election issues could be considered local as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, it's common for a local election official to hear from a voter, "I don't worry about how elections are ran here, but I worry about how they are run elsewhere."</div><div><br /></div><div>That's good and bad, I suppose, but reflects that local election officials know that the success of an election comes down to handling hundreds of details. Local election officials handle those details incredibly well.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now that I've been a state election official for almost two years, and with no offense intended to my new peers because this job has its own balls of stress, all-in-all, local election officials bear much more election-day stress.</div><div><br /></div><div>(And my time as a federal elections official.....well, that just makes me recall one of my favorite phrases-- "Where the Rubber Meets the Sky").</div><div><br /></div>Local election officials are the true heroes.<br />
<br />
I don't use that term lightly. I just know first-hand the immense pressure upon them, the exhausting hours they put in, and the scrutiny upon them in times of close elections. Two assistant election commissioners died from cancer and another recovered from major cancer surgery during my time in Johnson County, Kansas. My Johnson County predecessor is a cancer survivor. Local election officials literally give their health and years of their lives to serve voters. <br />
<br />Compared to their peer department heads in county government, for instance, the risk is much greater. I often said that a bad day for the Public Works director is a pothole and a bad day for me as Election Commissioner would have me on CNN.<br />
<br />
Fun Fact #1--I have been on CNN in a good way. They spent the day with me in November 2014. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLuLggYJyBM&app=desktop" target="_blank">This link has the interview summing that up, where I relayed that they were like family during that visit.</a><br />
<br />
It was a fun day. "Wolf's gonna love that," is the memorable quote from that election.<br />
<br />
But, usually, network news is not a place where election administrators want to be. Close elections become very emotional and if the outcome isn't ideal, it's easy, as in sports, to blame the referee. Election administrators, as a whole, do a great job and are the least political people you will ever meet. <br />
<br />
I've tried to capture the different elements local administrators face by creating a wheel of competencies. The picture here is the third generation, after fiddling with it at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to have the events follow chronological order of an election, and then modifying when coming to North Dakota because North Dakota, while managing a central voter file, is the only state in the country without voter registration.<div><br /></div><div>Fun Fact #2--When you get down to it, voter registration is an unnecessary burden on voters, another topic I wrote about on this blog. I'll address this further in a future post.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGAYyP9mokqQ4GoC1tAwwwMe7YWWeZseXnTaxWMHIGuzROp8l4h5fMTvPwkQiODNqfCKXCcJB0Gh7Mgd0_iNbsU88Zuf5SYiO6k1_uJZnvX7LCXC5VHs5_YsDry0g94VIZhm7LaWCr5E/s1083/ND+Wheel.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1083" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGAYyP9mokqQ4GoC1tAwwwMe7YWWeZseXnTaxWMHIGuzROp8l4h5fMTvPwkQiODNqfCKXCcJB0Gh7Mgd0_iNbsU88Zuf5SYiO6k1_uJZnvX7LCXC5VHs5_YsDry0g94VIZhm7LaWCr5E/s320/ND+Wheel.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Back to the wheel...by putting some activities in purple, to represent ongoing competencies that are year round, the events don't truly go round and round. We thought about different bands of activities to keep the wheel image, but it got more confusing and looked too much like a dart board, although, in fairness, election officials might feel like a dart board at times<br />
<br />
The whole point of the wheel--this blog, as well--is to raise awareness of the work election officials undertake to make election day--nay, election season (a point discussed much in the coming months)--go well.<br />
<br />
"Go well" is subjective, but if you consider that the center of all activities, rather than the nice logo here, is actually the voter, "go well" should mean that voters have the ability to easily vote and have confidence their votes were cast and recorded correctly.<br />
<br />
Each one of these Trivial Pursuit-like slivers represents a huge component, and local election officials must be experts in each. These aren't dimensions listed on a job description but major components that require expertise.<br />
<br />
Over the next few months, this blog will discuss many of the themes in the wheel planks.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-21936131670740785142021-06-21T07:13:00.009-07:002021-06-21T15:01:52.967-07:00Masks and Gloves Off<p>Eventually, this blog will find its voice again.<br /><br />This post is the beginning, although it’s a bit more of an
opinion piece than a straight-up blog post.<br /><br />A lot has happened since ElectionDiary went on pause in 2015. ElectionDiary began nearly 10 years ago, in the beginning of 2012, to document behind-the-scenes operations issues associated with election administration in Johnson County, Kansas. The blog was well-read, and received the Minuteman Best Practice Award from The Election Center in 2014. <br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span>But as I moved to serve as Executive Director of the United States Election
Assistance Commission (EAC) in 2015, I didn’t want the blog to interfere with the
messaging coming out of the agency. I even tried to curate the blog, or give it to someone to
keep it going, but, probably, just should have kept typing and posting as ElectionDiary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">When I applied to the EAC, the big question was, “would the EAC even exist in four years?” as legislation had continually been introduced to eliminate
the agency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will find blog posts
here where I thought the EAC had lost its relevance, and I felt a calling to go
and, as we said often during my four years, “Make it real.”<br /><br />The EAC, indeed, began speaking to election officials. Clearly,
I underestimated how much the agency existed just for the sake of Washington
politics, but Congressional sentiment towards the EAC appeared to shift through
2016 and 2017.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my opinion at least,
the agency is definitely more relevant than in its darkest days—2012 and 2013—and
was more relevant when I left in 2019 than it was when I started in 2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />The 2016 budget at the EAC was half what it was in the
agency’s early days, and through efforts to raise relevancy and tie activities
to election administration processes, our efforts in 2018 and 2019 to lift the
budget were successfully greeted with budget increases that the agency enjoys
today; the budget levels are back to those of 2010, which, sadly, is a major
accomplishment.<br /><br />But for all the good at the EAC, the aftermath of the 2020
presidential election, in retrospect, looks a lot like the 2000 presidential
election that led to the agency’s formation through the Help America Vote
Act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Not my president,” became a phrase
often used following 2016, and it is used by others in 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If voter distrust in elections was high in
2000, it would be hard to make a case it is lower in 2020.<br /><br />It’s hard to know if the country has ever been more divided
politically.<br /><br />It’s hard to know this, at least for me, because I actually have not lived and personally observed the nearly 245 years of our nation’s
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I'm pretty sure no one has.<br /></span><br />I’ve read books, seen the commercials for the Time/Life
DVDs, listened to scholars, saw <u>Hamilton</u>, and even sing along to They
Might Be Giant’s “James K. Polk,” but, you know….it’s all anecdotal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t had a front-row seat to the full
history.<br /><br />Funny thing, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security
Agency (CISA) appears to have the ability to assess history differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CISA is essentially a unit of the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS), and former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson declared
elections as critical infrastructure in January 2017, following the 2016
election and just weeks before he departed with the administration change.<br /><br />I was personally and extremely involved in standing up the governance
for this new critical infrastructure segment, although it technically isn’t a
new segment, but rather a sub-segment to the Government Buildings segment.<br /><br />That distinction is important because election
administrators initially wondered about all of their components—buildings,
mail, vendors, for instance—and how they would be impacted by the critical infrastructure distinction..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It became clear, as the agency name that
makes up CISA suggests, that the focus truly was on cybersecurity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (</span>The oddities of this will have to wait for further
posts.)<br /><br />For now, though, let’s look back at history, short-term, and
long-term.<br /><br />Just seven months ago, in early November, while votes were
still being counted and nine days after election day, CISA, through a small Joint Executive Committee of the two counsels that represent the
elections as critical infrastructure governance, declared the November 2020 election as "the most secure in American history."<br /><br />"In American history," I repeat.<br /><br />Oh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I’ve missed
the security scorecard rating for each presidential election. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe there is a letter-grade scorecard, much like the way analysts grade NFL teams after each draft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, I overlooked that.<br /><br />I’m not sure of the rubric CISA used to grade and make this
assessment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> How did the historic 2008 presidential election compare? For that matter, how was the 1908 election assessed and compared? <br /><br />What was the least secure election in American history? We ought to be on that. Which election just lost the crown and dropped to number two? How long can 2020 reign as number one?<br /></span><br />And, as most Americans read this statement from CISA,
we were unaware of the Solar Winds cyber compromise impacting DHS at that very
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Another global cyber event was unfolding at that time as well</span>. Surely, CISA knew of these events and still made this statement? (<i>that question was typed in Hopeful font</i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />I’m not convinced that the storyline of the
2020 election cybersecurity success is completely known yet, but the nationwide ironclad security that distinguished this election has been repeated to voters daily since November.<br /><br />Never mind that CISA, better than anyone, would know that
cybersecurity effectiveness is a lagging indicator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were no zero-day attacks, or attacks
known before election day, but that didn’t mean there weren’t compromises yet
to be discovered.<br /><br />As a reminder, CISA spent all of 2017 and 2018 explaining new and emerging details of potential foreign compromises in 2016.<br /><br />That’s not really the point here, either, but it gets to the
fundamental reason for the blog post:<br /><br /><i>(um…when you recover your voice for good, could you please get
to it a little faster?)<br /><br /></i>For whatever reason—maybe the COVID pandemic, maybe (and
more likely) the politics involved—2020’s election involved a major inflection
point that must change.<br /><br />As a local election administrator, when receiving calls and
concerns from voters, I invited them to the office for a tour. I sat down with
them. I showed them our procedures.<br /><br />I often say the three words you never want to hear from an
election administrator—“Just trust me.” <br /><br />"Just trust me" sounds an awful lot like, "It was the most secure election in American history."<br /><br />In 2020, voters instead were <b><i><u>told</u></i></b> the election was secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Voters were not <b><i><u>shown</u></i></b> how the election was secure.<br /><br />Maybe it was the most secure. But, let's show voters that. Let's show what we do as election administrators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br /></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Let voters see the process and procedures. Let voters decide if the process and procedures are secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If voters contend they are not secure, listen,
and either make changes or suggest legislative discussions or changes they may
want to pursue.</i></span></blockquote><br /><br />Many may argue this point, citing recounts and risk-limiting
audits, or even verification of signature checks. For the most part, though, to voters these
were <u>explanations</u> of activities. Voters were told these things occurred.<br /><br />It’s akin to the person upset at a customer service counter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s common to think, “They aren’t getting this
so I must talk more, maybe louder,” rather than determining another way to
reach the person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br /><b>We reach voters by being inclusive, not dismissive.</b><br /><br />I believe, for instance, in North Dakota, that our elections
were secure in 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, watching activities
in other states and nationally, I have to reflect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could we have done differently in North
Dakota in 2020, or, at least, what can we learn from all of this to change the tenor
for 2022 and 2024.<br /><br />I think the answer is to show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br /><i>The most secure election in history?</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Show me and let me decide.<br /><br /><i>Tupperware-tight chain of custody procedures?</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i> </span>Show me and let me decide.<br /><br /><i>Security around voting machines?</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Show me and let me decide.<br /><br /><i>Only eligible voters voting, and on time?</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><i> </i> </span>Show me and let me decide.<br /><br />I’m not in any way suggesting our elections were anything
but secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t met an election administrator
who didn’t take security seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
who we are as election administrators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />We, by our nature, are process control freaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I submit, that core value was not visible
the way it should have been in 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span><br />Maybe this was because of COVID, but now that the masks have
come off, so must the gloves.<br /><br />We must commit to <u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">showing</u> what we do, going
forward. Transparency is at the core of election administration, and renewed commitment to transparency has to be the guiding principle leading into 2022's elections.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-38766044436344837162016-05-30T08:14:00.002-07:002016-05-30T08:14:22.761-07:00Memorializing Memorial DayIt's Memorial Day weekend, a milestone weekend where we begin about a 90-day reflection upon all of those who have served our country in the military to protect us, our families, and everything associated with American life.<br />
<br />
Memorial Day is that unofficial transition to summer.<br />
<br />
It's also the time, in every even year during my 11-year tenure as a local election official, that I declared, "Game On!" With a June candidate filing deadline, an August state primary, and the November general election, the Memorial Day weekend also was the unofficial transition from baking plans to ensuring we had contingency plans. <br />
<br />
Memorial Day weekend was that last restful weekend before, in some years, Christmas.<br />
<br />
Memorial Day is a different transition point here. ElectionDiary was created in 2012, a presidential year to give behind the scenes views on election administration. That's just as vital in 2016.<br />
<br />
I have a different role and a different perspective, and one I'll try to link with my experiences. I still would prefer to have election administrators serve as guest bloggers, but the best way to move that idea along is to be visible here.<br />
<br />
ElectionDiary was never political in a traditional sense, as in having any view of the outcome of any election. But the blog has chronicled the equivalent of office politics that are encountered when administering elections. <br />
<br />
I'm now convinced more than ever in getting to know so many of my peers over the years, that behind nearly every highly regarded election administrator, known for running elections efficiently and fairly, is a story of an entity trying to inflict some seemingly unjust amount of influence on the administration of elections. <br />
<br />
That adds a wrinkle of stress to election administrators. Fact is, such a wrinkle probably is felt by nearly every public-facing government agency. Those are topics, I guess, for other blogs--DMVDiary, PublicHealthDiary, AirportDiary, or the like.<br />
<br />
My hunch, though, is this is more intense with elections.<br />
<br />
I've often had an imaginary conversation about this with my father, always someone who cut through things. My father, a veteran, passed away in May of the last presidential year and received a military 21-gun salute at his funeral.<br />
<br />
"Elections involve politicians," imaginary dad lecture would go. "Why wouldn't you think they were political?"<br />
<br />
Election Administrators are professionals who are more worried about ensuring voters are registered and have access to vote than anything else. Typically, the only reason election administrators know who is on the ballot is because the names were proofread, literally, 10 times.<br />
<br />
So to repeat the initial mission of the blog more than four years ago (and the blog has had more than 110,000 unique visits in that time just living in little ol' Kansas), the stories here will be about elections behind the scene, what happens on the "other" 364 days we don't have elections. Guest bloggers are invited from administrators and election geeks in the field. I won't enlist vendors per se, but, perhaps, thought leaders representing the vendor community.<br />
<br />
These stories--the SHARING of best practices--will be the hope from guest bloggers and my posts along the way. ElectionDiary won't be for news. <a href="http://www.electionline.org/" target="_blank">Electionline</a><a href="http://.org/">.org</a> and<a href="http://twitter.com/hhhelections" target="_blank"> @</a><a href="http://twitter.com/hhhelections" target="_blank">HHHElections</a> handles that very well.<br />
<br />
But, it's Memorial Day, "Game On!" in elections, and time for updates to the diary. As my friend at @HHHElections would say, "Stay tuned."<br />
<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-41981672130857449442015-11-06T03:45:00.001-08:002015-11-06T05:44:25.207-08:00The FutureOh, what to do, what to do....<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Documents/ED.GC%20Press%20Release.11-2-15.pdf" target="_blank">I have plenty to do, preparing to assume the responsibilities of the Executive Director of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and wrapping up my responsibilities at the election office.</a><br />
<br />
More, that's the question with this blog. <br />
<br />
This blog has been an unofficial voice--an administrator's personal voice, not associated with any official site.<br />
<br />
It can't really continue in its current form. The EAC website contains a blog with posts from the Commissioners.<br />
<br />
Yet, this site has a brand, with nearly 100,000 unique visits since its inception. <br />
<br />
And, it serves a purpose, especially in a presidential election year when overall interest in elections is at its highest. Election administration issues will see their most widespread attention then.<br />
<br />
I've given thought to curating the site, making it a place where several election administrators post regularly. That would make it have more frequent content, and it truly would have the diary aspect.<br />
<br />
Readership may increase. The profession, and our common issues, may gain more visibility.<br />
<br />
If you are an election administrator and this interests you, please let me know. If a panel of, say, 10 administrators regularly updated, we'd have a daily update, probably, and that would be very diary-esque.<br />
<br />
It might even elevate the site to place where it becomes The Huffington Post of Elections or, at least, a link on such a site.<br />
<br />
I have loved doing Election Diary. It started leading into the 2012 Presidential Election. Maybe, as we head into 2016, it becomes a "if you love somebody, set them free" kind of thing.<br />
<br />
I'm envisioning a little gallery of photos-but-not-photos, in that Wall Street Journal sketchy kind of way, of administrators across the country who contribute when they want to, and the collection becomes our own version of the CNN across-the-country view of what's going on.<br />
<br />
Thus....what to do, what to do.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, dear reader, if you return here only to see this post for a while know that the pause is intentional.<br />
<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-9810953276826051392015-11-02T04:30:00.001-08:002015-11-02T04:30:23.578-08:00Voters on ParadeWe have a couple of elections in the works, but we don't have one tomorrow.<br />
<br />
If this were 2017, the first year spring elections move to the fall, we would have an election tomorrow. Many in the country will vote tomorrow and we actually have received several advance ballot applications for the election that isn't. <br />
<br />
That's a bit of an awkward call, or at least it may feel awkward on the receiving end, but they present a terrific election worker recruitment opportunity--"You are so engaged! We need you!"<br />
<br />
Kansas City, Missouri, is one such area that has an election tomorrow. As suburban neighbors, we often get potential voters who assume that we have an election at the same time.<br />
<br />
Kansas City, though, has been through a huge, well, curveball for tomorrow.<br />
<br />
With the Royals winning the World Series, the victory parade has been scheduled for noon-2 tomorrow.<br />
<br />
Just when you think the world knows there is an election.....<br />
<br />
In Kansas, there is a law prohibiting someone from impeding a voter on the way to vote. <br />
<br />
"No officer, this is a parade...."<br />
<br />
Hmm. I can see the wheels turning with disruptors. <br />
<br />
I can't imagine a parade going through Johnson County on election day. I've had voters call to complain when a traffic accident temporarily closed a lane of traffic--that we should have had a contingency plan for any voter in those situations.<br />
<br />
(We do, by the way, in that they could cast a provisional ballot anywhere, although we'd prefer they vote at their location).<br />
<br />
Schools likely will be more empty tomorrow, throughout the metropolitan area. <br />
<br />
Again, if this were 2017, and the schools had been closed for voting as we are advocating, everybody would be winning.<br />
<br />
Maybe, in fact, that's what we should do--explain that it is likely there will be an annual World Series event on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. History has shown that.<br />
<br />
I, for one, am choosing to believe this Royals victory parade will be an annual event. <br />
<br />
From now in Kansas, so will November elections.<br />
<br />
For now, please share some warm vibes to the Kansas City Election Board as you add "World Series Parade" to the new Sporting News classic "Knotty Problems in Elections (Caused by Baseball)."Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-80442328122142833042015-10-22T19:20:00.001-07:002015-10-22T20:00:24.869-07:00On the Stick!My age was showing a couple of weeks ago in the park while running.<br />
<br />
As I came around a turn in a pathway, I saw a young couple holding a long pole with something at the end of it.<br />
<br />
Oh, a metal detector, I thought. A throwback. I haven't seen someone at the park with one of those in years.<br />
<br />
But, no.<br />
<br />
As I got closer, I saw the thing was being held out from their shoulders. They're going to put someone's eye out, I thought further.<br />
<br />
And, no, that comment wasn't (just) what showed my age.<br />
<br />
I realized they were holding a selfie stick, one of these new inexpensive Bluetooth-enabled photo-taking devices that hold a smartphone.<br />
<br />
Selfie sticks, and selfies for that matter, are sizing up to be the hottest election administration issue of 2016.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqw5C1qDK9MlsNFay-jTRyyB-XmqKGFjv-D68iVQtHBersiNqAL2EQT3E4KgpOjOB0zvwWQwGC4FaCx6QwjsQtbZmTtG-i0EdFk5VIZCJNzwyxmwovzV9RnRb6_-KvEPN7hNmoxSnG6aA/s1600/51dOuWmnBLL._SY90_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqw5C1qDK9MlsNFay-jTRyyB-XmqKGFjv-D68iVQtHBersiNqAL2EQT3E4KgpOjOB0zvwWQwGC4FaCx6QwjsQtbZmTtG-i0EdFk5VIZCJNzwyxmwovzV9RnRb6_-KvEPN7hNmoxSnG6aA/s320/51dOuWmnBLL._SY90_.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
There's even the first political book of the season on the millenials, calling them the Selfie Voters.<br />
<br />
But selfie votes mean a little more in elections, and, especially in a presidential election.<br />
<br />
First, the more exciting way--first time voters or just excited voters who want to take a photo of themselves voting to put on social media.<br />
<br />
We saw that in 2012 but we know that will be rampant in 2016. We've talked with other election administrators about running with that in a fun way, perhaps having selfie stations for voters while they wait to vote during advance voting.<br />
<br />
I've heard some creative ideas along this line and we plan to, um, borrow, yeah, borrow, but I won't spell them out here because they truly weren't my ideas. We'll show you as the election gets closer, though.<br />
<br />
Another type of selfie isn't really a selfie of the voter, but rather the machine. I voted for "Candidate," See!<br />
<br />
Minor problem--it is illegal to leave the polling place in Kansas with a representation of who you voted for.<br />
<br />
Major clarification--these photos aren't illegal because they are taken at the review screen before "cast ballot" is pressed. When that selection is pressed, the selections vanish. There is no "proof" of how someone voted. Voters could take 50 shots of the review screen, each portending to be who they voted for.<br />
<br />
A couple of things are clear, though.<br />
<br />
First, the whole selfie stick thing will be new to our election workers and we're planning to demonstrate how they work during training. We don't want the sticks misread as something else, say...a weapon or a metal detector.<br />
<br />
Second, we're going to need a point of view on selfies and selfie sticks at polling places. Already, selfie sticks have been both outlawed at a polling place and endorsed at a polling place, both in locations outside of Kansas. Expect selfie legislation to be a topic in many statehouses this winter.<br />
<br />
As election commissioner, I have to ensure that nothing disrupts the voting process, but I doubt selfie sticks will. Regardless, I will have to have completely thought through both sides of the lens on this issue before we begin communicating with voters.<br />
<br />
First things first, though. In the "it's never dull" news of the day, we now have a new mail-ballot election scheduled, for February 2. Another is on the way, any day, likely for April.<br />
<br />
If you are counting, we've had 16 elections in the last 20 months as it is, the most we've ever had in a 2-year period. We've had 22 in a three-year period and already have 6 scheduled, now, for 2016.<br />
<br />
We did have 2 weeks without an active election. Maybe we should have taken a picture with the hope it would have lasted longer.<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-2620648920056883052015-10-13T17:02:00.000-07:002015-10-13T19:24:14.054-07:00Hay! Is That a Pumpkin?Fall is the time for pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin carving, pumpkin pies, and hayrides on trailers accessorized by, well, pumpkins.<br />
<br />
And, it's time we make hay for 2016 before 2015 turns into a pumpkin and the presidential election is completely, "Game on!"<br />
<br />
We have spring elections in 2016 (we think....) and at least two mail-ballot elections considered in early 2016. There is even talk of a countywide mail-ballot election in May, just before the June filing deadline for August and November elections.<br />
<br />
When January rolls around, we can get busy negotiating advance voting locations. There are a couple of large, vacant storefronts that look like attractive sites, but landlords aren't willing to accept in October 2015 that the sites will be vacant in October 2016.<br />
<br />
They won't magically believe us in January, but we can start the dance, with the hope of buttoning everything down by April.<br />
<br />
We also will be sending our letters to the six school superintendents of our intent to use all schools as polling places in 2016. The new legislation that moved spring elections to the fall also requires school districts to make any schools we request by January 1 of each year available for that year's elections. <br />
<br />
Winter is coming, and that's when numbers will get more serious, but here in the fall of 2015 we can spitball our expectation that we will have about 400,000 registered voters for the presidential elections, 80 percent of those voters will cast ballots, about half in advance at what we expect/hope to be four sites or by mail, and the rest will vote at one of approximately 250 polling locations.<br />
<br />
We will need to button down those polling places. We need a plan for that.<br />
<br />
We will need to recruit about 1,000 new election workers. We need a plan for that.<br />
<br />
We will need to train about 2,500 workers. We need a plan for that.<br />
<br />
We will need new computers at our advance sites. We need a plan for that.<br />
<br />
We likely will undertake an intiative to utilize electronic poll books and, probably, new voting equipment at our advance sites. Again, we need a plan for that.<br />
<br />
Oh, we have a plan for that. The four largest counties have issued a request for proposal for next-generation voting equipment. Purchasing the equipment requires further planning, but the selection process is underway.<br />
<br />
Likewise, we will be issuing a request for proposal for electronic poll books. Our experience in the August 18 election, when trialing them, was satisfactory and we will be looking to scale them.<br />
<br />
We're in the process of revamping our election worker training plans and, further, have an ambitious effort to provide more education for poll agents. We'd also like to expand the capabilities of our website to allow for automated advance ballot applications, as well as more open data on the site to reduce the time we spend on candidate orders for information.<br />
<br />
The theme in our office for the last few months, from me, has been, "Show me the plan."<br />
<br />
Well, in fairness, the theme has been that I'll be saying that. Now, with about 10 weeks before year-end, we'll be getting busy with those plans.<br />
<br />
After that, it will be all about executing. <br />
<br />
We can't bail hay, but we do need to make it in these 10 weeks, or else we'll be bailing in 2016 in a different way from the oncoming election wave.<br />
<br />
Thus, the blog theme for the next few weeks will be presidential election preparation. Whatever activity and intensity level we are at for any given day, it will double the next. <br />
<br />
That means that whatever intensity we are at today, by January 1 it will be, um, a lot more. <br />
<br />
We're going to need a bigger boat. We better double down on Pumpkin Spice Lattes.<br />
<br />
(This cliché ridden post was partially brought to you by caffeine. Imagine the clichés by January).<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-14721200862174824792015-10-04T19:53:00.000-07:002015-10-31T05:55:31.784-07:00And PEW Begot MEOC....Early into the very successful Midwest Election Official Conference (MEOC) we conducted this week, I came to an obvious realization.<br />
<br />
It started as I looked at our manager of election workers, Matt Woehrle, at the sound board, pulling temporary duty as an engineer.<br />
<br />
Matt has been with our office for a few months now, but first worked for us in 2007 on a part-time basis before landing a full-time job with the Wyandotte County Election Office. He represents, actually, what those of us longer-term administrators have envisioned--rising talent intent on building a career in election administration.<br />
<br />
In fact, our office is morphing into one with many such employees, and that should be very comforting to Johnson County voters.<br />
<br />
But that's the entry into the thought, not the point of the post.<br />
<br />
Matt came in 2007 to work on what I called an election roadmap, a document that began looking at the future of elections (not equipment, but societal trends that might impact election administration) and how Johnson County should respond. <br />
<br />
It was an ambitious project, and we made some progress before Matt went to do real work in the Here and Now.<br />
<br />
When I began seeing the need for this work, I met with then Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, pulled out a book called "Seeing What's Next" and explained my concerns. I thought we should hire a consultant to help us, but we didn't have any money for such a thing.<br />
<br />
"Do you?," I asked Ron.<br />
<br />
"Maybe," he said. "And there might be other sources, such as 'Pugh'."<br />
<br />
Pugh? What?<br />
<br />
I later dug around and began learning about PEW Center for the States and while I saw the good work PEW did, I didn't see an immediate connection. At least I knew what PEW was. (I lead a sheltered little life in Kansas).<br />
<br />
Through fate, or through Ron maybe, I became connected some with PEW in 2008 and over the years have worked with the Elections Initiatives practice considerably.<br />
<br />
So it was, as I looked at Matt last Wednesday, I realized that this MEOC conference was an output of my involvement with PEW.<br />
<br />
Many of the terrific speakers were with organizations that were funded in some way, at least partially, by PEW. David Becker from PEW spoke. And those speakers who were not associated with PEW came because of relationships I had developed by working with PEW.<br />
<br />
I've always been skeptical of the benefits from some of the "Leadership XYZ" community programs, but have heard from graduates that they built relationships and contacts that have helped them tremendously.<br />
<br />
I'm still not sure, but I can say that this feeling I have with PEW has to be similar. Or, better.<br />
<br />
The conference had more than 200 attendees from Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, as well as election vendors. The information came at everyone through a fire hose, one terrific speaker after another.<br />
<br />
My mission, selfishly, was to provide my staff with a first-class election administration education opportunity. To attract the speakers, we needed a wider net of attendees, so the speakers could see their reach was wide.<br />
<br />
The room represented administrators for more than two million voters, and election administration for those two million voters will be better in 2016 than in 2012, to some degree, because of the conference. I'm convinced of that.<br />
<br />
I'm also convinced that I am lucky to have a peer group of election administration leaders I'm proud to call friends, I'm so thankful they came to speak. <br />
<br />
Regular readers of this blog know that I typically don't like to name people in posts and by listing Matt early on, that was really the precursor to me listing below the speakers and panel leaders, and friends, whom I'm so grateful:<br />
<br />
Tammy Patrick, Christy McCormick, Matt Masterson, Tom Hicks, Monica Crane Childers, Stephanie Sharp, Micheal Mahoney, Kyle Dubbert, Andrew Howell, Don Pyle, Martin White, Susan Greenhalgh, Paul Pate, Kris Kobach, Jason Kander, Tabitha Lehman, Shelley McThomas, Grant Veeder, Whitney May, Tianna Epps-Johnson, Kurt Sampsel, Susan Greenhalgh, David Becker, Wendy Underhill, Will Kraus, Mitch Holmes, Keith Esau, Julia Lynn, John Muante, Christopher Famighetti, and Amber McReynolds.<br />
<br />
They made the conference more successful than I could have ever imagined. Now, on to 2016! Many photos from the conference can be found through #MEOC2015 on Twitter. Below shows the room layout and audience, as well as a couple from the Wednesday entertainment of The Capitol Steps.<br />
<br />
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<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-74192378687600133482015-09-29T12:18:00.000-07:002015-09-29T13:38:15.170-07:00MEOC Ahead!It's Tuesday at the election office and while we don't have an election today, we're frantically moving around at election speed.<br />
<br />
Our little regional election administrator conference begins tomorrow and has blossomed beyond the 90 attendees we thought would be a stretch to nearly 200. <br />
<br />
Putting the conference on with a relative shoestring has redefined shoestring.<br />
<br />
To paraphrase a movie that I'm way too frantic to remember--"It's a darn good thing we have a presidential election next year."<br />
<br />
Which, on one hand, is why we're having the conference.<br />
<br />
We planned to upgrade our election worker training equipment for 2016--new computer, new monitors, new sound system, and maybe a stage for our perfect polling place skit.<br />
<br />
Buying some of those items now and trekking them to the hotel saves us some rental fees, although trekking will be less fun than even typing the word trekking, which already feels awkward because of the double kk's (really, how many words have consecutive K's? Is trekking the only one, and is trekking really even a word?). <br />
<br />
Still, two k's are better than KO, although the conference is coming close to knocking us out.<br />
<br />
You'd think we'd have learned that elections are stressful and this would bring about similar crazy. Yet, we always seem surprised that the election period makes us cranky from stress, too.<br />
<br />
I've said before that having an election is like having a baby.<br />
<br />
The long nights and pains of having a newborn are forgotten fairly quickly, leaving the parents with all the great memories of their child--so much so that having another baby seems like a great idea until the outcome is more sleepless nights.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZaPWCWEJAmG6Jd4eHZ8IjlIxX-xv0AbwGu0oy6SRR_4YwgeFibBzONu_P-d58PFBRJTw0_svh2laXmJt9UalR2aX-Xmy13UbJWKMkrm6qqHBJsrLczkarhZY7oqMMRcl4SRcwDlGSwk/s1600/IMG_3209.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZaPWCWEJAmG6Jd4eHZ8IjlIxX-xv0AbwGu0oy6SRR_4YwgeFibBzONu_P-d58PFBRJTw0_svh2laXmJt9UalR2aX-Xmy13UbJWKMkrm6qqHBJsrLczkarhZY7oqMMRcl4SRcwDlGSwk/s200/IMG_3209.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where's the instruction manual<br />
for the stage...?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So it is with elections, and this conference.<br />
<br />
The outcome of the conference will be rewarding. The conference features an A list of election administrator speakers, never assembled on the same stage before!<br />
<br />
(No one has ever been assembled on our stage before, because, as a matter of fact, we are still assembling the stage).<br />
<br />
I coordinated many trade shows and events in my Sprint days, so we're at the part where I feel like things are coming together just enough to introduce new things, apparently to simply terrorize my staff as they were finally thinking about exhaling. <br />
<br />
"What if we streamed the event?"<br />
<br />
"We have transition music, right?"<br />
<br />
"Can we have lasers?"<br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't call them Swag<br />
Bags (or satchels for<br />
Skittles)--these are <br />
Vote Totes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ok, I didn't ask about lasers. (At this event, anyway. We also don't have the money to hire Michael Buffer, the guy to customize a "Let's Get Ready to Rummmmmmmmblllllle!" intro. I did that in the past. He charged $3,000 for that, 20 years ago).<br />
<br />
We'll update here and elsewhere (<a href="http://www.meoc2015.org/">www.meoc2015.org</a>). We'll use the twitter hashtag MEOC2015. <br />
<br />
The conference starts Wednesday at noon, central time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-19512832999760916792015-09-16T10:28:00.001-07:002015-09-16T14:32:38.210-07:00Election Day, Zero Ballots(revised, new data at the bottom, 4:30 p.m. on 9/16/2015)<br />
<br />
Gardner's mail-ballot election closed yesterday at noon with remarkable efficiency.<br />
<br />
That efficiency isn't from us, but rather the United States Postal Service.<br />
<br />
Okay, as regular readers can guess by now, that previous sentence was in sarcasm font.<br />
<br />
You see, Monday's mail brought us 169 ballots.<br />
<br />
Today's mail brought us 79, too late to be counted.<br />
<br />
Yesterday's mail brought us 0.<br />
<br />
By the way, 17 people dropped off their ballots yesterday. But somehow, with remarkable success, every voter who wanted their ballot here by mail did so--included in Monday's mail.<br />
<br />
If you are scoring at home, Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, that's 169-0-79.<br />
<br />
Really?<br />
<br />
We called the post office yesterday morning at 11. On the previous two Tuesdays, we received only 1 ballot each time (about 2,600 voted and 10,000 ballots were issued).<br />
<br />
Nope, no ballots.<br />
<br />
Really?<br />
<br />
We had someone else call.<br />
<br />
Nope.<br />
<br />
Really?<br />
<br />
As election administrators, what more can we do? Demand a right to storm the post office and search for yellow envelopes?<br />
<br />
For sake of argument, what if nothing was there and instead they were held too long at the Kansas City post office and were in a truck headed to Olathe?<br />
<br />
We call the post office, but should we consider anything in the pipeline at the post office? Even if it's a postal facility in a different state?<br />
<br />
At the very least, with postal service levels changing, jurisdictions will need to consider the use of mail-ballot elections. Or, maybe Kansas laws should be changed to base returns based on postmarks--that would require significant change, though, because Kansas mail-ballot elections pay the postage for the voter--business reply mail.<br />
<br />
As a starting point, I can raise the problem.<br />
<br />
You, dear reader, in a life-imitating-life moment (there is no art to a voter not able to cast a ballot, so no art-imitating-life moment here), you are part of said awareness effort.<br />
<br />
That's all--fairly short for a blog post, but a powerful issue to begin considering.<br />
<br />
Unless, of course, it seems perfectly reasonable for a three-day mail pattern to be 169, 0, 79. Maybe ending Tuesday delivery was suggested by the postal service because there isn't any actual mail on Tuesday. <br />
<br />
Somehow, I doubt it.<br />
<br />
79 others in Gardner may wonder, too.<br />
<br />
<br />
One of our snappy staffers pulled the numbers from our August recall election--it was at the polls, so the numbers weren't as compelling, but the pattern remains:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">AUGUST ELECTION<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monday 3 August – 22 ballots<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday 4 August – 4 ballots<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wednesday 5 August – 41 ballots<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monday 10 August – 75 ballots<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday 11 August – 0 ballots<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wednesday 12 August – 43 ballots<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monday 17 August – 51 ballots<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday 18 August – 1 ballot (election day)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wednesday 19 August –27 ballots (too late)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-56670019962188503242015-09-08T11:14:00.000-07:002015-09-08T11:14:37.527-07:00Warm Fuzzies and Furry ThoughtsWe're in election mode again, with a mail-ballot for the city of Gardner.<br />
<br />
It's the ninth election of 2015, the most since we had nine in 2005. If this were an ACT test question, expect nine elections in 2025....<br />
<br />
We also got word that we likely will have a school district mail-ballot election in early 2016, so the beat goes on.<br />
<br />
It's hard to complain, really. After all, we exist to administer elections.<br />
<br />
Lamenting elections would be like Tom Brady belly-aching about his next game at quarterback, or Al Roker complaining about doing a weather forecast.<br />
<br />
In fact, I think it's worth giving it up to election administrators who have processed hundreds of elections and millions of ballots. We strive to be the voter concierge, and being a concierge implies answering the same question over and over as though we've heard the question for the first time.<br />
<br />
(Side note, on election day, we want our workers to be prepared for any type of voter to be their first voter--a perfect voter, an audio ballot, a provisional voter, lost voter, etc. This preparation paid great dividends in our last election. More on that in a future post).<br />
<br />
This past week, our office had an outing at a minor league baseball at a stadium near the Kansas Speedway. Hopping on the highway after the game, I saw the Comfort Inn and Suites Kansas Speedway, and I thought about how it must get very old answering the phone, "Thank you for calling the Comfort Inn and Suites Kansas Speedway...."<br />
<br />
(Of course, it may be answered, "Thank you for calling. Your call if very important to us...")<br />
<br />
In any event, further praise to those who approach things with the same gusto over and over.<br />
<br />
Another night, recently, I happily saw The Psychedelic Furs in concert at the Crossroads. I've seen the Furs six times, dating back 30 years. I've seen them play "Pretty in Pink," for instance, in each of those shows.<br />
<br />
Yet, the lead singer, Richard Butler, was the same animated self he was at that first concert--the same gestures at the same points in the song, in fact. <br />
<br />
It's not as though it was his sixth time in Kansas City (eighth--I missed two), but likely his six thousandth time he's sang that song.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5zkzy2jrL-qUbVgf8bjiPPb8GeuutECbeNNqkb23qhyRV4zJGAgO-wARoWC4pjqxgO5OdUvx5_KiRBgIkr5pFgWPxUVeOJi_rxMuRPCc-m2ubwSEpA3XtLHA3Y2K3oEMzkT0iXmjo-8/s1600/IMG_3254.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5zkzy2jrL-qUbVgf8bjiPPb8GeuutECbeNNqkb23qhyRV4zJGAgO-wARoWC4pjqxgO5OdUvx5_KiRBgIkr5pFgWPxUVeOJi_rxMuRPCc-m2ubwSEpA3XtLHA3Y2K3oEMzkT0iXmjo-8/s320/IMG_3254.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Butler sings Pretty in Pink in KC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So where is this going? Well, first, I really wanted to post a photo I took at the concert :-)<br />
<br />
But, second, I've administered more than 60 elections in 10 1/2 years. But there are people at our office who passed the 100 mark. There are people in this country who have administered hundreds of elections.<br />
<br />
September is National Voter Registration month. For those of us in the industry, it's worth pausing this month to reflect on the administrators, too--our peers and colleagues, and congratulate them on bringing energy to their jobs and to voters.<br />
<br />
Voters have much more energy for the outcomes of elections--parks, roads, taxes, libraries--than for the election process. Without elections, there would be no government, at least a government we'd all want to have.<br />
<br />
You, dear reader, are likely one of these cogs of the election infrastructure. Pat yourself on the back and whet your whistle with another cup of coffee at the rinky-dink election office break room. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnpNLWCfTMEMSuUPLBQn3nrOKh-QhT6C5aApYtvBDkhH-z-TNqcD1jR2HzB18LcWH9beo_rPdgvGQf1uDDFj5O661rh_zBVX5C4Wn81W482OqpPrN3JxJhHZF5ejPRDHawmcfwhkaVzM/s1600/IMG_3088.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnpNLWCfTMEMSuUPLBQn3nrOKh-QhT6C5aApYtvBDkhH-z-TNqcD1jR2HzB18LcWH9beo_rPdgvGQf1uDDFj5O661rh_zBVX5C4Wn81W482OqpPrN3JxJhHZF5ejPRDHawmcfwhkaVzM/s320/IMG_3088.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my favorite things at LA County's Election<br />Warehouse--the lunch room is closed at, well,<br />lunch time.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then, get back to work! You have an election to administer!<br />
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Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-49301608052728385332015-09-05T06:27:00.000-07:002015-09-05T06:27:13.628-07:00MEOC AgendaThis is out there elsewhere, and by placing here for those who come here regularly, I'm hoping to provide a quick update and maybe not allow you to see I haven't posted in a while.<br />
<br />
(Oh, blew my cover on that. I will have a post for reals this weekend).<br />
<br />
The agenda is tentative in that we are still finalizing speakers and may be shifting topics around to accommodate speakers and have one topic best flow to another.<br />
<br />
This is setting to be a rockin' conference. Hotels are getting full--yes, hotels; the primary hotel is close to full if not already full. The website <a href="http://www.meoc2015.org/">www.meoc2015.org</a> has nearby hotels and registration info. If you've been waiting to register, now is the time to do it, this weekend. You have a whole extra day at home! <br />
<br />
I'm very proud of our employees who are pulling this together, in the midst of elections no less.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT7p_zvkx-tp9swRhiiuoWRDxU1bW0TbOrJNZaKoXWrFnLGT5jO-MVJmiczNticdJwyNh0hzAoXJ1sUNP-U3u6WQhcBJG4AoQcpxyl4nhGUYQM2IXCpmes1bB9jLrGb13SM-kgEcL04Eg/s1600/MEOC+Agenda.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT7p_zvkx-tp9swRhiiuoWRDxU1bW0TbOrJNZaKoXWrFnLGT5jO-MVJmiczNticdJwyNh0hzAoXJ1sUNP-U3u6WQhcBJG4AoQcpxyl4nhGUYQM2IXCpmes1bB9jLrGb13SM-kgEcL04Eg/s640/MEOC+Agenda.png" width="492" /></a></div>
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Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-7317564887064255062015-08-18T09:23:00.000-07:002015-08-18T09:23:14.996-07:00An Election Like No OtherToday is an election day.<br />
<br />
And, not just any election day.<br />
<br />
(Interlude--is there any such thing as "just any election day"?)<br />
<br />
It's a recall election in the De Soto School District, approximately 20,000 registered voters, and a great opportunity to test new technology at the polls in advance of our big year in 2016.<br />
<br />
We're trialing electronic poll books. <br />
<br />
If you're not close to elections, the idea of trialing an electronic listing of participants, signing up on an iPad likely seems so 2010 to you. (That's when iPads rolled out, by the way).<br />
<br />
Even if you are in elections, you might be doing the cartoon double-take swag of your head right now, surprised Johnson County hasn't already rolled out electronic poll books.<br />
<br />
There are a few reasons for that--one is the cost, at least a half-million dollars to roll out next year, and probably closer to a million.<br />
<br />
Another is the operational impact. While fairly straightforward, using iPads as poll books presents operational, training, and logistical issues. <br />
<br />
(Interlude 2: "issues" was intentionally used instead of "challenges"--I'm not a fan of "challenges." I also call "problems" problems and not "opportunities." I get the self-help thinking, but life moves fast, says Ferris Bueller, too fast to not call a problem a problem).<br />
<br />
(Interlude 3: I just realized that I may be the only person who has heard of the directness at Amazon.com in the New York Times and said, "That sounds like a great place to work...." That's probably extreme, but election administration requires confronting operational impacts directly).<br />
<br />
So, 14 polling places, 28 electronic pollbooks, 28 printers, 14 wireless hot-spots, and a support to polling place ratio of about 3:1.<br />
<br />
As of 9:11, as I'm typing, no emergencies. No problems. In fact, it's been a quiet election morning.<br />
<br />
That support focus is a big reason. Many from the Shawnee County Election Office have spent the night to help us. One of the snazziest election whiz-kids in Kansas, from the Wyandotte County Election Office, has come to help us for a couple of days. Vendor representatives, including the former Kansas State Election Director, have been here to help us.<br />
<br />
All of that is huge. In fact, more and more, the largest counties--the ones with Election Commissioners--are uniting on issues, sharing learnings and resources, seeking equipment solutions together, and overall just working hand-in-hand in a very powerful way. This is to the credit of my peers more than me, honestly, but a couple of my key staff members here have elbowed into the party when I can't be there. <br />
<br />
This cooperation, a side point to this post, can't be understated as all of us look to 2016. If you are a voter in Kansas, this is good news. You will hear more about this in the months ahead.<br />
<br />
Back to the immediate news--we're learning how to train the use of equipment. <br />
<br />
We've ran into that some with iPads and smartphones already, but these relatively simple devices show us the training issues ahead when we roll out a new voting system. Our county has gone through this before, but it's been 12 years, and most of our staff has turned over since then.<br />
<br />
Beyond the training, we're seeing some of the operational benefits.<br />
<br />
One of the advantages is simply not having to have a crew work several hours the Saturday night before the election printing, proofing, and preparing poll books. (For this election, though, we printed the poll books, sealed them in an envelope, and hid them in the supplies in case there was an emergency and we needed to go retro).<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5NvfPxz5JVHABntFJ3F-K1b4TCM0J2UEorZZwPMu76eXtAXwaAoPv7n7jKtnJytsweA2ZhOH50ShVbL8o1v6N_JQir8neRbNvT9zNv_dG76Ab9WmGgYd3iBZXNhnWp_WRoFL5O8M59A/s1600/IMG_3124.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl5NvfPxz5JVHABntFJ3F-K1b4TCM0J2UEorZZwPMu76eXtAXwaAoPv7n7jKtnJytsweA2ZhOH50ShVbL8o1v6N_JQir8neRbNvT9zNv_dG76Ab9WmGgYd3iBZXNhnWp_WRoFL5O8M59A/s320/IMG_3124.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Election Worker Training (above) and<br />Dashboard Examples (below)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
(Interlude 4: Yes, we sent out so many items to the polls that we can effectively hide a poll book in the supplies).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTuNFk8IhGIsRtj7B9MrzQuFQAPsFotkLjQv4cWmrwYSZqZlt-uMabJVMIY8d_-pWi99vmXv3MIWsbraGlAQIiX8uyRTxK37uvics0w31wjMJvMmiaDG8QXmZrD_LHkS155gpgvHuc60/s1600/j2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTuNFk8IhGIsRtj7B9MrzQuFQAPsFotkLjQv4cWmrwYSZqZlt-uMabJVMIY8d_-pWi99vmXv3MIWsbraGlAQIiX8uyRTxK37uvics0w31wjMJvMmiaDG8QXmZrD_LHkS155gpgvHuc60/s320/j2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We're also seeing the dashboard capabilities of the electronic poll books. We can see, at any moment, how many people have voted, who has voted and when, and our overall real-time turnout.<br />
<br />
So, that's cool.<br />
<br />
It's probably more than cool. It will help us know of issues (aka "problems") faster.<br />
<br />
There are some operational time-savers on the back-end, too. We can close out the election in the voter registration system much faster, as opposed to going through all of the poll books, page-by-page, to scan the bar codes of the voters who voted.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEXfjxYhrZdSw3zCzckRc8Brd5CAGw5wMVlcS4r4m6I3qAk6PEYWtd4dK4FH6-uA-95rqxewnuq4K0SIhl38f2AMSXm3XeA0cai8xPq50K3NHwV_lH1j0b7RExb0dWaxlRWH-hKPROBZY/s1600/j3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEXfjxYhrZdSw3zCzckRc8Brd5CAGw5wMVlcS4r4m6I3qAk6PEYWtd4dK4FH6-uA-95rqxewnuq4K0SIhl38f2AMSXm3XeA0cai8xPq50K3NHwV_lH1j0b7RExb0dWaxlRWH-hKPROBZY/s320/j3.jpg" width="320" /></a>For this election, we used equipment provided by KnowInk in St. Louis. Fun fact, St. Louis is the Silicon Valley of electronic poll books. Election Administrators, another highly regarded electronic poll book company, also is located there.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSxL6A-9ZofSDCX-oKH3jPbOGgggW08WfR4bE8180H5FsdNT7jYH5h-D6RhdvJwoKcBnDyk-yPSwuGJgI1nL03F9pc5N67lVaXNyfrEiC1AwJPSZ9x1-FK0OjLhTCAbI1oFrBTqDX6ORg/s1600/jw1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSxL6A-9ZofSDCX-oKH3jPbOGgggW08WfR4bE8180H5FsdNT7jYH5h-D6RhdvJwoKcBnDyk-yPSwuGJgI1nL03F9pc5N67lVaXNyfrEiC1AwJPSZ9x1-FK0OjLhTCAbI1oFrBTqDX6ORg/s320/jw1.jpg" width="320" /></a>From here, our evaluation will lead to us issuing a Request for Proposal for electronic poll books. We expect those two companies to respond, as well as a couple larger full-system providers, such as ES&S.<br />
<br />
I've attached some of the screens shots of the command center for fun.<br />
<br />
(Final Interlude: Yes, if you've read this far, you likely would agree that this is "for fun.")<br />
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Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-4263420245797807492015-08-09T22:00:00.001-07:002015-08-10T08:01:35.733-07:00LA County Needs No Fixin<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much is going on, as always, it seems, so this post will
try to capture a chunk of that at once.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet, the post is from a sleep-deprived place, so it will be brief, with follow-ups soon on our preparation for the De Soto School District Special Election, a trial of electronic pollbooks, and the follow-up to my observation trip to Albania.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm typing this post flying back from an exciting meeting pulled
together by the Bipartisan Policy Center and preparing for election worker
training in the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagine I'll
be at a place to post this Saturday night, after the training, so there will be
a need to post again soon.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The meeting brought in election administrators from some of the
largest jurisdictions in many states.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The point was to learn from those leaders key issues that are being
addressed, with the idea that data and programs applied in those jurisdictions
would have value cascading down to smaller jurisdictions.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">First, if that doesn't sound exciting, then you're no
friend of mine.....</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Okay, you are my friend, of course--with music on the mind from the long flight, I was channeling some flood of songs to
defend the excitement--first, Men Without Hats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> "If they don't dance, well they're no friends of mine."</span></o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Election administration isn't quite like dancing, but it is like the fast skate at Skateworld sometimes.</span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or, as Louie Armstrong said when asked to define jazz (or
election geekery), "if you gotta ask, you'll never know."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or, The Dead Milkmen, who sang in Punk Rock Girl,
"if you don't got Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin'"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p> Okay, I'll stop now. </o:p>Yes, the flight is approaching red-eye status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it showing?</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's just that once the election geekness starts, it's rabid.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One proof point was our trip to the Los Angeles County Election Warehouse. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Put together about 30 election geeks and they do, well,
geeky things, and we were definitely that way at the warehouse.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p> L</o:p>A County has about 12 times the voters we have in
Johnson County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our meeting yesterday
was on the fifth floor of their building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They have more than 400 election employees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That kind of scale promotes learnings that cascade to us
tiny tots, like 400,000-voter Johnson County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Oh, yes, if you are scoring at home, 400 employees divided by 12 does
not equal 16......, so benchmarking only goes so far).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But, that transfer of knowledge, I think, is what the
Bipartisan Policy Council is seeking by connecting with many communities of our
size, that further learnings will be transferred down to 40,000-voter counties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, Virginia, the election industry has an 80/20 rule,
just like most industries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh, and by Virginia, I literally meant Virginia, which
was well-represented in the meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIC2L3ZwApFTUowHOHuwtF5EX6IEEwJVsLwG5M5F8PB6JcFi8ZrjBj-QooLTOtWhc2BX5s-6lhn-WhO_CkYbG1-cMGLpqFTx0MJaNCN354OGZcZYZvtpODFY0McKKaab30GCBAnlRWhVI/s1600/IMG_3085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIC2L3ZwApFTUowHOHuwtF5EX6IEEwJVsLwG5M5F8PB6JcFi8ZrjBj-QooLTOtWhc2BX5s-6lhn-WhO_CkYbG1-cMGLpqFTx0MJaNCN354OGZcZYZvtpODFY0McKKaab30GCBAnlRWhVI/s200/IMG_3085.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now THAT'S a warehouse!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Those compadres from Virginia and many other states
hopped out of a van with me at the warehouse, and before I could begin taking photos of the
outside of the warehouse, I noticed three others already were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4XTmeHEk_9NMF8ywNxI0yvbAQ9Q0qMlzaw18aEODp6HeY3oz3m2jsVlw042OzlxX9baFSBRfm6BmmULsoyWhoVtFjsPLkzh3vEhA6pRHYSQ3q4kuycRyuoovXpvBZXLALUb9PL0Ey8I/s1600/IMG_3089.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4XTmeHEk_9NMF8ywNxI0yvbAQ9Q0qMlzaw18aEODp6HeY3oz3m2jsVlw042OzlxX9baFSBRfm6BmmULsoyWhoVtFjsPLkzh3vEhA6pRHYSQ3q4kuycRyuoovXpvBZXLALUb9PL0Ey8I/s200/IMG_3089.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">You'd have thought we'd hit the lot at Universal Studios,
not the biggest election stage in the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Heck, I found myself taking photos of my friends taking photos of the
election building.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All of us were excited to see the outside of a building that housed election equipment.</span><br />
<br />
The key word in that sentence was "outside." The outside of a warehouse caused palpatations.<br />
<br />
Really.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
I've shown a couple photos here of the warehouse--once looks like a court where the Lakers might practice.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the meeting provided a quick piece of theory before returning to the practical aspect of election worker training for our 8th election this year.<br />
<br />
More on that in the next post.</div>
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Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-4551300428401456862015-07-26T11:25:00.001-07:002015-07-27T05:46:22.313-07:00The Lehman ProposalTypically, I don't use many names in my blog posts.<br />
<br />
Today, I will, just for the context of the post and also to laud the owner of the centerpiece of this post.<br />
<br />
First, readers of this blog and election geeks everywhere know that voting systems in the United States are aging, with often no identifiable funding mechanisms to fund the replacements.<br />
<br />
I've written about that extensively here regarding Johnson County.<br />
<br />
In fact, we've painted ourselves into a corner in Johnson County. Our office has been promised the funding for a new system when that system is defined. Alternatively, money was being socked away annually to prepare for the system but that process stopped in 2011.<br />
<br />
We're defining the system, planning for a 2017 rollout, promises remain, but the county's financial position to back up that promise is suspect at best.<br />
<br />
I've been continuing to advocate that the cost of elections be itemized on residents' property tax bills and be funded through a separate mill levy. <br />
<br />
That isn't some nutty idea--it's in Kansas law, a separate mill levy for elections, and Wyandotte County, for instance, does it. I'm not pushing for a tax increase, although that could be a vehicle county commissioners have to link actual costs against dollars raised.<br />
<br />
It's the ultimate in public transparency. Residents would know exactly how much (how little, in fact) elections are costing them and when callers ask for more advance voting options or newer equipment, for instance, they'd know what the impact would be to their pocketbook. <br />
<br />
Personally, I think an itemized tax statement would drive more government accountability, so I can't see how it's a bad thing. <br />
<br />
Another reason supporting this change, I believe, is a new law passed this year that soon will require governing bodies to receive public approval through a (costly) election if mill levy rates are increased above the rate of inflation. Special elections are funded by the jurisdictions calling for them and not the election office. However, in the board of county commissioner's case, county tax dollars will have to pay for such an election.<br />
<br />
Being proactive now by utilizing this elections mill levy and pulling out election costs from the general fund would help them later, I'm convinced.<br />
<br />
I'm the only one convinced at this point, though.<br />
<br />
I guess I should just pause and the take the win from another legislative item I'd pushed for years--schools being out of session on election day. Coupled with moving spring elections to the fall, this essentially has happened with the elections law that passed this year. Schools don't have to out of session, but are required to be available.<br />
<br />
That win took 10 years. <br />
<br />
I'm into about year four of the elections mill levy advocacy.<br />
<br />
But, back to the equipment.<br />
<br />
Conventional wisdom says the county will issue long-term debt as the method to find the funding for the voting system. Problem is, long-term debt has an annual price tag. <br />
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Debt retires. Annual price tags drop as a result. Smart governing bodies (Shawnee Mission School District, especially) ensure that new debt follows the old and the amount being paid annually doesn't drop off. <br />
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A drop off would be good in the short-term for taxpayers, but then the sticker shock for new debt might keep new projects from being started and soon, a school district (for instance, not the one mentioned) would need to make operational spending cuts or request a tax increase to operate the same way it had 10 years ago.<br />
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So, in Johnson County, if the amount of annual debt added exceeds the amount retiring, that money is going to have to come from the operating budget--the same one that for 2016 already exceeds the existing mill levy. <br />
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The amount of annual debt service payments required for a voting system will exceed the retiring debt service payments. (There is some fuzzy math that might say otherwise, but if you dig deep enough, you'll find this to be true).<br />
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Down the road, our voting equipment will be a tax increase in the making because we haven't planned and now, ironically, it would take a costly election to approve the funding.<br />
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This, by the way, is what happened in the late 1960s that led to Johnson County taxpayers voting to approve the purchase of voting machines (and the legislative creation of the mill levy tax for elections that some counties utilize).<br />
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Fact is, though, the mill levy in those counties is paying for operating expenses, not debt on capital.<br />
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So, while I try to push on that item, funding for voting systems needs a similar press with the legislature.<br />
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One Johnson County commissioner, John Toplikar, wondered if there was a way to create a technology fee within the Kansas legislature to pay for new equipment.<br />
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I'm not a fan of fees--he isn't either, I think--because they are hidden taxes. Tipping fees for landfills, for instance, are built back into the cost of service for trash haulers and passed on to residents.<br />
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But if there was a fee that didn't impact taxpayers?<br />
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My peer in Sedgwick County, Tabitha Lehman, has suggested a portion of political contributions be funneled back to the state for new voting equipment.<br />
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(Quick interlude--Tabitha represents one member of a cadre of election administration superstars in Kansas; I travel and meet with my colleagues across the country, and Kansas election administrators show very well. They fall behind the shadow of a loudmouth know-it-all with a blog, and are among the country's best-kept election administration secrets).<br />
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Back to Tabitha's idea. It's akin, I guess, to a portion of money raised by college athletics to be put back into the campus infrastructure--parking fees, reduced ticket prices for students, and campus security.<br />
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I'm not sure of the dollars--it's worth building a case based on actual contributions from 2012 and 2014. What if, for instance, candidates who raised more than $2,000 or $5,000 in a race had to contribute, say, five percent back to the state for the administration of an election technology fee?<br />
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There are probably ways to exempt loans and contributions from the candidate (it would seem unfair to self-fund a campaign and pay, essentially, a penalty for not taking contributions). It's possible that 5 percent wouldn't even make a dent, unless, of course this became federal legislation.<br />
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In fact, I know there are several immediate reasons why this wouldn't work. "Dark money," for instance--how would that be captured?<br />
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But the fact is we are about to see an outrageous amount of political spending, heading into 2016. These candidates will expect voting systems of the same sophistication as their campaigns.<br />
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Major league players deserve major league stadiums.<br />
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One thing is clear to me--communities will get new election systems when these expire. We're not going to collectively raise our hands to vote and the Internet appears, for now, off limits as an idea (I mean, come on, when the IRS is hacked....)<br />
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It's time to drive the discussion and find a funding solution before it's funding out of crisis. Frankly, I think we're heading into funding out of crisis in Johnson County despite my barking.<br />
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But we're on the leading edge of this issue--Johnson County's voting system fleet is among the oldest in the nation. Many communities implemented new systems about three years after we did, with funding from the Help America Vote Act, and we're just the leading indicator of pain ahead.<br />
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So, I proudly will begin pushing the Lehman Proposal. Or the Tabitha Tabulation Solution.<br />
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My experience has been that the best way to push for ideas is come up with one that, worst case, can be criticized and drive debate. If there are reasons why this won't work, let's discuss them and determine what will work.<br />
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Otherwise, many of us in Kansas may eventually be conducting special elections on outdated equipment to determine if taxpayers are willing for a tax increase to pay for a new voting system. <br />
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Maybe that's the logical outcome of all of this, but being proactive now may avoid it.Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7923094224720419114.post-62579027530748873712015-07-11T05:32:00.003-07:002015-07-11T05:32:56.316-07:00MEOC UpdateIt's been a while between posts as I get back in the groove in the United States and further in the groove with our two elections.<br />
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There's much to report, and the next few days will show me back in the posting groove as well.<br />
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For now, it's time for an update on the Midwest Election Officials Conference.<br />
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It's scheduled for September 30-October 2, open to any election official, not just those in the Midwest. (See, even if you are not in the Midwest, on those days you would be.....)<br />
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We will be contacting potential speakers soon. We have a list and we're checking it twice. <br />
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The theme will be Bridging Today with Tomorrow. <br />
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Very specifically, the theme will focus on execution of the largest issues facing election officials. Often, there are "future of elections" discussions where we gather and talk about the many pending crises ahead, from funding to lack of polling places to aging equipment.<br />
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This conference will be intended to take those topics and lay out a prescriptive path, moving from "the sky is falling," to "here's how you build a roof."<br />
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For now, those interested in MEOC can line up a few things:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Text MEOC to 74574 to be prepared for updated on the conference.</li>
<li>Bookmark <a href="http://www.meoc2015.org/">http://www.meoc2015.org</a>, where updates to MEOC will occur very soon, including an online registration form</li>
<li>Contact the Hilton President Hotel in Kansas City to reserve rooms with our room block, with the rate of $106. As a government office, we committed to a fairly small number of rooms (we'd be responsible for the unused rooms) and we can increase the block if people start booking now. Information regarding the hotel will be on the website, but MEOC2015 is the room block.</li>
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As for the blog, I'll be speaking with the Johnson County NAACP today on new election laws and will post related to that. And, an update from Albania awaits.<br />
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More soon.<br />
<br />Election Diaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12903855927381541410noreply@blogger.com0