Stay on Target!

I'm not the first to adopt a line from "Star Wars" as a strategic mantra and not even the first to adopt, specifically, "Stay on Target!" as that theme.

But it is the constant cry I'm using for our election workers, our staff, and even me for 2012.

You'll remember that as Luke Skywalker was flying towards the Death Star to shoot a laser into the station's pea-hole-sized vulnerability, he faced enemy fire and and was coaxed by his comrades in other ships to, "Stay on target. Stay on target!"

We're not in any kind of universe-saving mission, but we are expecting to be surrounded by election noise, particularly related to photo ID laws, voting machines, and the overall publicity around the presidential election.  All of that is simply a distraction to what we need to do--administer the elections.

Particularly with Photo ID, I don't read about what's going on in other states, or what the Department of Justice may or may not do, or what anti-Photo ID legislators are saying, or, for that matter, what proponents are saying.  As I often say, we are rule followers at the election office and the rules have been established.  If the rules change, we'll change.

It's akin to when I worked in competitive intelligence at Sprint.  We spent so much time chasing the impacts of bills that were proposed and never passed, we finally realized that our Give-A-Darn Meter should only be raised when actual changes were imminent.

That being said, Photo ID wasn't much of a distraction with our Feb. 28 election.  We had one photo ID protester and another voter legitimately left his ID in his other car, but that was it.  

We got more feedback from our election workers regarding the rollout of iPads to help get voters to the correct polling place than we did from photo ID.

That is worth a pause:  this whole big ball of angst--good and bad--known as Photo ID was overshadowed in election worker mindshare by tablet computers that gave our workers a new tool to direct voters to their correct voting location.  A new solution to an old problem was bigger news to our workers than all of these new procedures.

I've heard that Photo ID was a non-event in other states and I gave those who said that the cocked-puppy-dog-head look like they were crazy.  But, it's starting to look like that's the case here.

So it was hard to get fired up to speak on Photo ID Thursday night.  I was beginning to think the event would be about as exciting as a lecture on, well, telecommunications legislation.

I was invited to a panel on Photo ID at the Mainstream Education Foundation.  There were about 75 people there and if I was wondering where the anti-Photo ID crowd was, they were well-assembled there.  I spoke, followed by a state senator, then a voting rights advocate and someone from the ACLU.

There was definite energy in the room.  This was the most engaged group I spoke to since meeting with the Political Chips a couple of years ago.  These two groups have opposite viewpoints, but it's always nice to feel the passion regardless of the point of view.

I've posted my presentation here, but it probably needs some explaining.  "Tales from the Hood" is a phrase I've used in training, where I'm asking our election workers to give us training feedback on our procedures.

Election 2012

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Because "the hood" seemed a little intense, I changed it to "Neighborhood," and figuring they would be feeling good in the neighborhood, I thought of Kansas City company Applebee's.

Hmmm.  Maybe it would have been better without explaining.

Anyway, we need groups like this, though, to get the word out about Photo ID requirements, just like we'll need the Political Chips.  

Our approach, as mentioned a bit on this blog, is to have a key connector outreach strategy.  It ties some to the book, "The Influentials," one of those books that you've almost read just by reading the title.  If one person influences nine others, we want to direct our outreach to those who can reach large numbers.

You'll also see our outreach vehicles (literally).  And, I'll soon have an update on our training video for our election workers, another group of influentials.

Fuzzy but Depressing Math

Did you know that 37.1 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot?

It's true.  I just calculated that.

The relevance to that statistic comes in the spreadsheet I've posted below.  There are likely some aspects of fuzzy math here and the cliche, "You can use statistics to say anything," comes to mind.

Still, these numbers came from the county's budget group and you'll see that the election office has had budgets cut, by percentage, more than any other department since 2006.

I got these yesterday as we considered more costs for 2013, when we likely will lose two positions to retirement.  We're a poorly timed illness away from disaster as it is, and how could anyone conclude differently when looking at the sheet below?

I just talked with someone from a group where I'll be speaking tomorrow night and one of the questions she posed about Photo ID involved outreach.  Specifically, she said our online materials were very good but asked what we were doing to reach people who don't have computers?

The same question applies, I replied, for any outreach related to elections, not just Photo ID.

We have no money.  I've learned to barter with nothing but goodwill.  We stumble across talented groups and persons who want to be part of the election process because they believe in the importance of elections.  These people, like Whitworth Ballou, the agency we used in 2008 and the Secretary of State has enlisted this cycle, perform outreach tasks for us for pennies on the dollar.

At some point, it's all going to break.

The chart below gives an indication as to why.  The large chunks taken are from years with November elections and, as I said about fuzzy math, some of that likely came back to our department as the year ended.  It was placed in something called "countywide," which really is a rainy day fund for the county.  I know we tapped into it in 2010.  On the other hand, I'm sure there are extenuating circumstances related to the cuts in other departments, too.

Still, if only half this amount was cut (and it was definitely more than half), we'd still be among the cut leaders.

Budget cuts2

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Jumping the Shark, Election Style

On the surface, you probably don't want election administrators taking risks.

Fonzie's famous 'Jumping the Shark'
moment on 'Happy Days.'

As an election official, playing it safe is Value Number One.  We think through Plans B, C, and D.

As a manager, playing it safe is a path that can lead to long-term failure, missing what seem like obvious moments, in hindsight, to change.

So, in the case of the coincidentally named SAFE Act (Secure and Fair Elections Act, passed by the Kansas legislature and in effective January 1), I have very limited resources to get the word out to voters about the role of Voter ID in upcoming elections.

Even though the majority of voters in Johnson County, in my opinion, support Voter ID, the nuts and bolts of it will lead to an uptick in provisional ballots in 2012.  We knew this.  We saw the same thing happen in 2004, after the Help America Vote Act led to a Kansas requirement for first-time voters to show ID.

Provisional ballots are issued when there is a question about a voter's eligibility.  The voter casts the vote and we sort out the eligibility between election day and the day the election is certified at a canvass meeting the following Monday. 

"Provisional ballots" is one of those phrases that can elicit different emotions based on the context of the conversation.  Provisional ballots can sound like a fail-safe voter-rights kind of thing, which they are.  Or, because provisional ballots that can be counted come in after the election night results, close races can flip, causing reactions that these ballots are somehow shady.

With no outreach budget and the same staff size we've had for 20 years (despite a myriad of legal and technology changes and more than a doubling of voters), I can't take a carpet-bomb outreach approach.  I'll take a rifle rather than shotgun approach to outreach, depending a lot on social media (yes, by reading this, you are now in an art-imitating-life moment related to my outreach efforts).

I do have a more intense commitment, in terms of time, with our audience of election workers.  I conduct all training and we will have about 2,000 workers in 2012.  We have great workers in Johnson County.  Many communities think they may have the best workers, but they are wrong.  We do.

These election workers are influentials often in their circles.  They represent an outreach channel.  Likewise, candidates and campaign managers are akin to distribution agents of outreach. 

So, our rifle-focus will be in these areas.  This will be much more effective than speaking to 20 people at a time at Rotary and Optimist Clubs, although I will do that as much as possible, too.

My theory with election workers is that the more they are comfortable with the new law, the better prepared they will be for objections and issues at the polls (such as, "I left my ID in the car").  Hopefully, we can reduce the number of provisional ballots through operational preparedness at the polls.

To that end, and to my post headline, we're putting more production into our training.  We've enlisted a comedian who will be creating a video of various potential situations at the polls--portrayed over the top--to lighten the mood during training.  Then, we'll go through each scenario and cover the training.

The video will either be a home run or strikeout.  Comedy is fickle.  I've worked with this guy before, when I was at Sprint, more than 10 years ago, and I had the same feeling then.  The result was a home run, no question. 

We had a call with him yesterday to work on the script and he's coming to our office next week to shoot the video.  I'll plan to post some photos from the shoot.