Track and Field

The Super Bowl is just hours away and a few hours from that, 9 a.m. tomorrow, the wrap-up will begin to our Super Bowl of elections--five school district mail-ballot elections on January 27.

That January 27 was a day. 

The election closed at noon, as ballots were being dropped off in person at the rate of 3 a minute.

Also at noon, the candidate filing deadline for the spring election.  With the deadline passed, about one-third of the county's voters have will be eligible for the spring primary on March 3.

We have a mayorial primary in Shawnee, two city council primaries in Roeland Park, and an Olathe School District primary.

We've had 5 mail-ballot elections on the same day (just now, but also 3 on the same day before), we've had different types of elections at the polls on the same day (primary in one city, recall in another), and we've had two different types of elections on the same day (mail-ballot ending at noon on the same day as a polls election ending at 7).

But we've never had the finish line tape crossed in one election at the same time the starter pistol was going for another.  That made Tuesday feel like an election office track meet. 

Some in our office were gathering the last ballots dropped; others were assessing which races might require primaries, polling places, election worker needs, and ballot plans.

It gave new meaning to continuing with an active election.

Ten years ago last month, I came to the Johnson County Election Office, and we have had an active election every moment in those 10 years.

How do I term an active election?  Well, one we are actively working on is the simplest way.

But the definition is more narrow. 

For instance, we're thinking about the 2016 presidential election, but that's not an active election. 

We're working on the spring primary--that's active.

It will be followed by the spring general--that's active.

The next election isn't scheduled until the winter of 2016.  The election isn't set, with candidates and questions, so that election isn't active.

And what that means is that fate is teasing us--the streak may come to an end in mid-April as we wrap up the spring canvass.

It's a bit of way to have an answer to the "what do you do the other 363 days of the year?" or "is that a full-time job?"

Back to the Super Bowl--I'm pretty sure the NFL event personnel work full-time for this once-a-year game. 

Elections are no different. 

We're event planners, after all.  That, and logistics managers. 

So, when I mention this active election streak, it means one thing to me and it means something else to those who were working at our office before I came.  As far as I can tell, the actual active election streak is about 14 years.

Tomorrow's canvass day--Groundhog Day, ironically--for the mail-ballot elections will mean closure to those five elections.  We're already working on election number six and seven.

It's unlikely that we will go the rest of 2015 without a special election. 

For instance, in 2013, the day after the spring election, I received a call from a city to schedule a mail-ballot election.

Nobody here is hoping for such a call this April.  We'd be fine with that streak ending.  We have more than enough pent-up work.

After all, advance voting for our real Super Bowl begins in just 21 months. 

School Elections Near the Finish Line

We're 48 hours from the close of the five school mail-ballot elections, collectively the largest mail-ballot effort we've ever had and the largest number of paper ballots ever processed in Johnson County.

And yet, I'm in the office and it's empty, calm. 

I did not see this coming.  I thought today we'd have a full crew in, buried, wondering what kind of reinforcements we needed.

Our crew left yesterday fully caught up, although we expect an onslaught in the mail tomorrow and many drop-offs Tuesday morning.

So, we don't know when we will have unofficial final results, but it's feeling more like it will be Tuesday, at some point, rather than Wednesday or later.

I could say the reason is our preparation.  That's definitely fair--we thought we were ready, but we weren't sure.  We had about 50 part-time workers, in different stages, different roles, different rooms.

I could say the reason was the decision to utilize a new high-speed scanner, the first ever of its type used in Kansas and one of the first times this model has been used in the country.  It was a big risk--going straight to a live election without staff training through a smaller or test election--but it has gone very smoothly.

I could say the reason is the dedicated hard work from all of our part-time employees.  That's definitely true.  It's very gratifying to see so many people here, working hard and getting paid very little, but caring so much for our voters.

Another factor, though, is that voters aren't voting.

We're at 95,267 ballots returned right now, about 29 percent of the 332,237 ballots issued.

I expected closer to 50 percent returned.  Likely, the final number will be less than 40 percent.

Mail for Santa in Miracle on 34th Street.  We expect
a similar picture, in living color, Tuesday.

As I like to say, there's a lot of baseball left to be played.  We might experience, for instance, a Miracle on 34th Street experience where the post office brings in tray after tray after tray of ballots on Tuesday.

As I type, cars are coming in at the rate of one per minute to drop off ballots.  That will become intense tomorrow and Tuesday.

Still, 40 percent turnout.  That's like, to paraphrase Nuke LaLoosh, lower than 50 percent. 

That's probably all that means.

I don't know that the turnout leads to any conclusions.  We did have a lot of undeliverable ballots (people move, you know) and the turnout is pretty consistent among all 5 districts.

Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission are both at 30 percent, De Soto is at 33 percent, and Olathe and Gardner-Edgerton are both at 26 percent.  Perhaps there is a difference in the communications efforts within the districts, but the number of voters and even the type of voter (apartment vs. home owner, school family vs. non-school) are probably the main factors.

An interesting Big Data project would be to compare all of those factors after the election is over.  While interesting, it simply may be just that.  I'm not sure how actionable the data would be.  There may be learnings political campaigns in these areas can gather for future races.

Our actionable list was very specific--job one was to get the job done.  We're well on our way.

Expect photos and an update on Election Day.

Or is that spring election filing deadline day?

Why, yes, it's the same day, the same time.

These elections close at noon on Tuesday, precisely the same time and date we will know the extent of our March primary election.

We already know we have a primary for Shawnee mayor.  That whole update, likely, will be Wednesday.

Dropping Out of Society

I'm 10 days from being Johnson County Election Commissioner for 10 years, and in less than 7 days, we begin the most monumental thing our office has experienced in that time.

On Wednesday, we will mail out more than 330,000 ballots to voters in five of the county's six school districts.

The significance is not just the amount of paper and volume we're facing, but also that this is a steep mountain of paperwork, hitting us at a 90 degree angle and an equally fast drop-off after February.

That's an unusual way of saying, "We'll never see another like this."

So, what does that mean?  It means that if this were the new normal, where we moved to all mail elections for instance, we'd scale our operations in a way to permanently handle the volume.  This wouldn't be an egg going through a snake's body, but bunnies, constantly nibbling and sweetly multiplying.

I would have never considered our current stressed-out environment conjured up images of bunnies (or unicorns or rainbows), but fact is, we've historically proven we can handle a certain volume of transactions, and the number of registrations and voters reasonably increases over time. 

We would have time to request and budget additional resources.

If we moved to all-mail ballots, we'd have this big ramp up, but then, with each election, we'd only be dealing with the incremental changes.  January would be tough, but in a short-term-pain, long-term gain kind of way.  By the time we carried this new normal into 2016, if that's where we were headed, we'd have manageable routines.

Here, we've taken on this big meal and are trying to process it through our existing structure.  We have to do it this way because after the election, we're back to the processes we already have, with a spring primary already ensured for early March and then a countywide election at the polls in April.

The fact that we're having these elections in between November and April is news enough--we've never had this, this fast, this large.  In fact, election day is also the filing deadline--when we know how large the March primary is.  Talk about transitions:

Election ends at noon.  Filing deadline is at noon.  The finish line for one and starting line for another is the same line.

So, how to deal:  first off, we're on lock-down. 

I've already informed our staff that days out of the office require two levels of approval a week in advance and my administrative assistant has shut down all meeting scheduling until April 15.

I'm dropping out of society, much the way new parents do when having a newborn (and, I've often here compared elections to babies--babies are cuter, but bunnies are cute, too).

We are utilizing an ES&S high-speed scanner for ballot scanning--the first in Kansas and one of the first times in the country--and we're being trained on next week.  By the time we are experts with, we will flex back to normal size, essentially putting the scanner on the shelf until another large mail-ballot election.

It's not uncommon for us to have mail-ballot elections for 80 or 90,000 voters--just never for 330,000.

We're bringing in a special board of about 40 employees, who will work 6-day weeks.  We're not sure if that is enough, and we'll assess that a week into this.

We're expecting an average of 10,000 ballots returned per day, but that's an average, and there is a postal holiday involved, too.  We could very well find ourselves trying to swallow an influx of 30,000 ballots on a particular day.

That's a lot of scanning, but that's even more blocking and tackling--opening envelopes, checking EVERY signature, entering the voter into our registration system.

For that, we're using every computer and every work station in every crevice of the building.

That may not be enough.

We may have to hire temporary agency employees and work two shifts, but we'll see.

In the end, we're taking a structure that is used to handling 50,000 pieces of returned mail, tops, and flexing it 6 times.  I'm not even sure Stretch Armstrong flexes that far.

There is a fair likelihood we may not have final results on election day (the election ends at noon).  If we have a big mail push that day and our special board is weary heading into the evening, they'll come back and finish the next day.

We might even assess providing results district-by-district, where only one or two might be waiting a day for unofficial results, but that may not be possible with the scanner.  For instance, in running Gardner's results, we might get exposure to interim results for another district, and that would be unacceptable.

Blogging will be impacted.  Everything will be impacted.  If nothing else, I'll be posting photos.

Tomorrow, a group of employees are going to the Pitney Bowes facility to watch them load up the envelopes.  We'll have photos from that.

New Normal, With a Short Fuse

I haven't really intended to take the month of December off so far, but such is the paradox of this blog.

It's intended to give a behind-the-scenes view of our elections, yet, as elections heat up, it's harder and harder to update.

There's much to update but this will just stick with what's continuing to be the greatest election story ever told her--the school district's mail-ballot elections scheduled for January 27.

What's important here, and we're learning this more and more each day, is the scale ahead of us.

Checking in an average of 10,000 envelopes a day requires a lot of computers, hand-held scanners, and authentication tokens into our statewide voter registration system for signature verification.  The scope of that is becoming more real to us as we devilishly hop into the details.

We processed about the same the number of returned paper ballots in 2004's presidential election that we will handled this year, but most of those ballots were in-person ballots, not requiring signature verification.

We've been so focused on the scanning of 165,000 returned ballots, we realized we haven't spent enough time on the "checking in" consideration, and even simple things like, "Do we have enough tables and chairs?" and "Are our envelope openers up to the task?" need to be explored.

There's some sort of business correlation here in that we are addressing the need to scale fast.  If this was the new normal, we'd make decisions to plan for that--automated signature verification systems, for instance.

But this isn't the new normal.  It's a spontaneous breakout--like the first time you see "Rocky Horror Picture Show" in a theater and people run out to the aisles to do the Time Warp, only to come back and sit next to you.

Before we can pick up our jaws from January and ask, "What just happened?" we'll be back in the typical world of our polls elections.

Everything we know is wrong, but just for about 60 days.  That's our new normal. 

It's the Temporary New Normal.

As Roeland Park's election concluded yesterday, the reality is, the Temporary New Normal is full-on.

Paper, Party of 330,000?

Somewhere, there will be an election administrator in a jurisdiction using paper ballots who will read this post and consider our plight child's play.

But, here we are, short-staffed and run down following the November election and in the middle of a much smaller December election in Roeland Park.

Yet, a monster set of elections await us, with ballots going out the first week of January to about 330,000 voters in five of the six school districts in Johnson County.

If half come back, we will be processing 165,000 pieces of paper, plus the envelopes, in roughly 16 days.

That's more than 10,000 ballots returned daily, and each one of the envelopes has to be checked into our voter registration system and have the returning signature matched against the voter's record.

Then, the ballots have to be scanned and tabulated.  Never having paper at the polls, at least in the last 50 years, we operate with a handful of scanners at our office.

At most, these scanners can scan 1,000 ballots an hour, but a likely throughput for the four we have is really about 2,500 an hour.

We've never processed this many paper ballots before.  Our office used paper ballots for advance voting in the presidential election of 2004, with a two-page ballot, and that resulted in nearly 200,000 pieces of paper.

That was just before I came to this job and I still hear horror tales from that process.

Job One here is to, well, get the job done.  We've never pulled something like this off before, and the fact that it falls right between two countywide elections (spring is comin') makes this even rougher.

In fact, the election itself ends the day after the spring election filing deadline.

Job Two is to get the job done as economically as possible.  Incremental costs are passed on to the school districts, while fixed costs--such as staffing and equipment purchases--are borne by the county.

So, that creates two problems for us--at least two phases of one problem and another problem, actually.

The first problem is, how many part-time election workers do we appoint to handle the load?  Part-time is likely the wrong phrase--temporary, full-time workers. We probably could use at least 75.  In November we had 12.



We only have 20 stations for envelope check-in.  We'll pretty much be needing someone sitting at those stations the entire time.

Each signature on the return envelopes must be verified.

Could we even get 75 people?  What if we needed more?  Where would they work, securely?

Can we get by with fewer, and how?

If only we had one of those fancy high-speed scanners that's being touted with some of the next-generation voting systems.  Our system isn't compatible with such a thing but if the system was, we could scan much, much faster--10,000 in just a couple of hours.

Or....

Somewhere in the Royals' World Series euphoria, we decided to take a major leap here, using an entirely new voting system for this election.  It's akin to buying a big-screen television just before the Super Bowl. 

This isn't the major leap it could be, in that we aren't going to have any election at the polls, but we are going to set up the election and operate it with a new tabulation system. The system will use a high-speed scanner.

Election administrators don't roll like this.  Where's the mock election?  What are we doing for redundancy?  These are typical, internal questions.

Our equipment vendor, to the redundancy point, is a four-hour drive away.  If the system can't be warrantied to be fail-safe for the first 20 days of its life, there's an issue there, anyway. If the system explodes, I'm sure we will have another one within a half-day.

The system has been certified federally and in Kansas, so that's not a risk.  It's just that we're making this huge transition in December for an election that will be over on Groundhog Day, the day of the elections' canvasses.

Unlike the movie, the day after Groundhog Day, and every day after, will not be the same.

Once this election is over, we'll have a high-speed taste test, an understanding of a new system that we will evaluate for our ultimate equipment replacement, and a very large paperweight until our next large mail-ballot election, likely in late 2015 or later.  It's not quite a throwaway unit, but close.

The big question is the reconciliation between the scanner costs and the savings of people.  That's roughly going to be a wash.  Remember, though, Job One is to do the job.

And this job requires that we not bring a rinky-dink scanning system to high-speed scanner fight.

So, the battle begins.  We hope to have the unit on-site this week to begin preparations.

It's funny--that Super Bowl comparison:  in November elections, the media likes to ask us is if this is our big moment, our Super Bowl.

I'm sure, given all we have going on, our staff would much rather not have this behemoth group of elections in January.  But, we've never done something like this before, and in February, conducting the canvass they day after the NFL's Big Game, we're going to feel pretty good about what we accomplished.

That sounds like a Super Bowl party to me.

Fall Elections, Continued

Last Friday, I received a call from the Kansas legislature's legislative research group looking for information on how other communities conduct local elections.

As the legislature considers moving spring elections to the fall, there have been a couple of odd arguments against the move.

Namely, a central objection is that the elections are in the spring for a reason.  Why change?

(Now, I think that's an odd stance on many points but mostly because by its nature, isn't every law a change of some sort?  Isn't this the equivalent of the "Not in my backyard!" argument?)

The mission for the legislative research group was to report back about the timing of other local elections.

I responded that I thought local elections really were all over the place.  Intuitively, I would expect about 80 percent of local elections to be either in the April or November timeframes, likely evenly split between the two.  Then, the other 20 percent are sprinkled among the other months, mostly June and September.

But, who needs facts?

Well, they do.  I'm just not sure there is a central place for such a thing.

I gave her a couple of leads, but short of a fast survey among election officials, I don't know how such data could be gathered.  I did also suggest that maybe the search be narrowed to those states that border Kansas, giving the data a conventional wisdom view.

Yesterday's Kansas City Star article on potential changes of Kansas City elections to June was timely.    The driver?  Possible turnout increases.

That's the reason touted for the consideration in Kansas as well.

No one really knows if turnout will increase in Kansas City with a move to June, just like no one knows if turnout will increase in Johnson County if local elections are moved to November.   As an administrator, I've favored moving local spring elections, in odd years, to November of odd years to better load balance elections.

And, I am of the opinion that people correlate "November" with "elections."  That's purely an opinion, though.

The League of Kansas Municipalities has been advocating its own opinions.

The League contests that moving the elections will have little to no impact on turnout.

First, I would point out that because we've had local elections in Kansas in the spring for 153 years, we really don't have reliable data to suggest what the outcome would be if things were done differently.  I don't know what triggered the spring thought 1861 but society is a bit different today, so maybe the timing of elections should be, too.

And if doing something different than has been done for 153 years might have "little impact" on turnout, that still might be enough to try something new.

The League also compared average temperatures in April and November and, finding them the same, suggested no benefit from moving.

They overlook the primary being in August rather than February.  It rarely snows in August.  

Both the House and the Senate committees on elections have advanced bills to move elections to the fall of odd years.  The Senate, with an amendment, excluded Johnson County Community College and Water One of Johnson County.  This effectively moves the city elections to the fall but keeps the spring elections--4 elections now instead of 2--so we're hoping that this is fixed.

Quite likely, we're headed to a legislative conference committee inflection point, where the details are sorted out in early May.  I'm still hopeful, although, it's a long shot, that someone will, at the 11th hour, include a provision that the school's have in-service day on the November election days and be available as polling places.

If that doesn't happen this year, it probably will never happen.

I've learned in public policy that chance favors the prepared mind, but also to be wary of anything that is a once in a lifetime chance to do something.  I wouldn't put this as a once in a lifetime chance, but it's hard to see legislators revisiting the school issue again for a while.

When I was on the Shawnee City Council, we were evaluating, once, a potential golf course community.  To do this, the developer required the city to condemn an owner's property.  We had to do this, he said, because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to create such an economic benefit to the city.  He was guaranteed a PGA Seniors golf tournament if he built this, he said.

And as he stood at the podium, I swear that I began to see him turn red, with little horns emerging from his head.  Was that a cape?  A scepter?

It was an out-of-body public policy moment, and an impression on me to always be wary of "once-in-a-lifetime."  We didn't join the crusade and Shawnee is doing fine without it.

Still, I don't want to be THAT guy with the school issue.  This is just an ideal time to add the school in-service item.

I hope it happens.  I understand that people at the podium want ice water, too, though, so my primary concern with the bills as they are is that they take away the exemption of the junior colleges and water districts.

Having four elections in odd years solves nothing.

Interestingly, what stirred the amendment was an attempt to exempt entities that had their own charters, like Johnson County government.  "By vote of the people," it's often said, citizens of Johnson County wanted their commissioners non-partisan (and without veering into the weeds--really, we aren't in the weeds?--this amendment protects that.)

But "by vote of the people" is an interesting phrase because, in 1966, Johnson County "by vote of the people" authorized the use of voting machines.

As we went through our capital budget process--and a new post coming--I've reflected on that.  Using the same "by vote of the people," logic, I wonder if a paper-based next generation system would first have to be approved by voters.

This may be a once in a lifetime situation we will have to address soon.

I Have Seen the Enemy, and His Name Is Snow

If you've been reading this blog lately, you're probably tiring of me advocating for the move of spring elections to the fall of odd years, but this weekend is one big reason why.

Well, it's 5 reasons, anyway.

That's the high temperature.  We're experiencing the coldest March day in Kansas City history amidst a winter storm.

That's following the once-every-20-year storm we had last year during the spring primary election.  That was the argument, in fact, for downplaying last year's snow event as a reason to move the elections.

That month knock-out last year is still fresh on our minds at the election office.  It will probably be fresh on my mind for 20 years.

This storm created flashbacks but a whole new set of issues and further reasons to consider the move.

Another reason is being touted, I think, today by a member of Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) at the National Association of Counties conference.  I just saw a photo of Tammy Patrick on Facebook, speaking to a legislative committee, about the readout of the report.

The report advocates a school holiday or in-service day for elections.  If we move spring elections to the fall of odd years, we'd have August and November elections every year, with school out on both days (if the school holiday was also part of the law), voters would have predictable polling locations, and military and advance voters would have the convenience of voting that laws intend.

Ooops--that last item is a new reason on this blog, brought to light by this weekend's weather event.

And, while I'm piling on new reasons, we're rumbling into Ash Wednesday this week, here simply an indicator that we have a later Easter than normal.  Spring election polling place selections also meet uncertainty when we crest against Easter and Passover.

I'd much rather not have a storm, but we've had had two in two years.  That, combined with the recommendations of the PCEA (which cited this blog--at least a blog citing this blog, actually--in making this point) create the cliched perfect storm for improving scheduling of elections for our voters.

Back to this weekend:

Our election was this past Tuesday and the canvass can either, by law, follow on Monday (tomorrow) or the following Thursday.

Our canvass is scheduled for 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.  At a canvass, the Board of County Commissioners acts as the Board of Canvassers and reviews any provisional ballots or challenged ballots.  They allow those envelopes to be opened in accordance with laws and election standards, those additional votes are added in, and the election results are certified.

This is their meeting, by the way.  The Board of Canvassers has a statutory obligation to have this meeting.  I'm the emcee, but the Board of Canvassers is the entity that certifies the results and validates the election.

In Johnson County, we have seven commissioners but most counties in Kansas have three.  In those counties, the canvass can get pretty purposeful, with each canvass member reviewing each envelope, maybe even during the tabulation process on election night.

Here, though, mostly because of the volume of ballots we usually have, the canvassers review categories and occasionally ask specific questions.  Also, unique to Johnson County, the canvassers have created procedures that allow for alternates to attend in their place.

This was a very small election and the number of provisional ballots is low.  The canvass shouldn't last that long.

I'm So Tired of Photographing
Snow--This is an Artist's
Rendition of the Look Outside
My Window

Five of the seven commissioners are at the NACO conference, and that's where the introduction of
the blizzard I'm watching out my home office window right now comes into the discussion.

We have alternates lined up--department heads from the county.  We have alternates for the alternates lined up.

We also know from last year's election storm that best intentions doesn't trump the inability to get out of a driveway.  We don't really know that we'll have the required 7 canvassers tomorrow morning at 9, or even our three special board members to open the ballot envelopes (I can't do that, by law).  If the special board members can't make it in, we'll have to figure out how to go get them.

Take a look at the results from Tuesday's one-race primary and you'll see that the winner picked up 324 of the 420 votes cast.  Number two has 36, three has 31, and four has 28.

We're recommending, based on law, to open 8 more envelopes.  Presumably, there will be ballots in those envelopes.  The ballots most likely will be voted and when tabulated they probably will trend the same way as the final results, with the majority going to the leading candidate.

But that's why they play the game, sports fans.  The distribution could be such that we might have a different number two.

And, with number two not decided, we can't send off our ballot order for the April 1 election.

That would be the April 1 election where military ballots should be delivered no later than February 15, ten days before this primary.  Of course, we couldn't have met that date based on the spring election schedule, but we could have sent ballots, say, on February 26 if the outcome was certain.

Advance ballots by mail for non military and overseas voters can be received beginning March 12.  Assuming the canvass is tomorrow, we'll be lucky to have our printed ballots back by Monday, the 10th.  That gives us about 24 hours to get out a couple of thousand ballots.

If we had the primary in August with the general election in November, this math crisis wouldn't exist.  "One less thing," as Forrest Gump would say.

We saw this storm coming in forecasts on Friday.  Schools very likely will be closed tomorrow, with overnight temperatures forecasted at -8.  That also plays a factor in who will arrive for the canvass.  Some alternates may have parenting priorities.

We had discussions of moving the canvass.  But, to when?  Thursday?  Advance ballots surely would go out late.

Later on Monday?  What if the storm came slower and 9 a.m. tomorrow turned out to be passable but 2 p.m., not so much?

I just returned from a trial drive to the office after a night of sleet and three inches of snow (we were forecast to have more but it came as sleet).  I returned, though, in a full-on blizzard and my driveway doesn't look like I'd taken a shovel to it, although I had it nearly cleared this morning.

So, you never know.

And, of course, "never know" is what eats at election administrators.  Plans B, C, and D in effect, it would be nice to stress the value of, um, Plan E:

Election day in-service day for November elections so that schools are available in August and November, and snowstorms aren't a factor.  The cost-neutral, less-havoc solution, would be to move spring elections to fall years, leaving voters with a predictable election day every November, usually at the same polling place.

By now, someone reading has probably thought that snow could be a factor in November.

It could.  History has shown it hasn't been, though.  Heck, I was the kid who went home and changed costumes for trick or treating round two and as a parent I paraded my kids door-to-door candidate style as though Halloween was a conquest (isn't it?).

I could chart for you the weather conditions from those years, although with grown kids I'm now retired from Halloween activities.

But I have put this same snowstorm costume on two years in a row, and that's two years too many.

No Lines Here!

This week, I received some LinkedIn notices of congratulations for my anniversary as an MBA faculty member at Baker University.

(Note to self--I've been doing that for eight years now; time to purchase an orange Baker Wildcats sweatshirt).

It got me thinking of the selection process years ago, and that led to some linkage with election events this week.

One of the components of the selection process was to deliver a short 10-minute presentation on any topic so that the evaluators could get a gauge of my presentation approach, style, and interaction with participants.

I'd been at the election office for about a year when I did this and rather than trove through my Sprint presentation collection, I decided to create a presentation on voter participation.

I'm not sure I had a grounded position on voter turnout and participation before I came to the election office.  It's a much more complex topic than it might seem on the surface.  The short presentation was just a summary of points others raise when discussing turnout.

Often, for instance, in spring elections particularly, turnout is very low.  Usually, turnout is less than 15 percent and, more likely, less than 10 percent.

Such turnout rates evoke criticism of our voters, and I'm not down with that.  I'm a believer that compelling races, compelling issues, and compelling candidates attract voters.

I once heard my smart colleague Dean Logan of Los Angeles County say that the number one objective for an election administrator is to increase voter turnout.

I see the logic of that.  He may be right.  I definitely think that's correct if turnout can be increased universally.

I'm more of the view that for those who are inclined to vote, my job is to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.  Blanketed messages to all voters, I think, is the role of our office, but, personally, I get uneasy concerning targeted approaches to improve voter participation.

There are the cliches in turnout--young people don't vote, for instance--that I think are often unvalidated or maybe self-perpetuated.  Any election office resource targeting one type of voter might eliminate resources to assist others, potentially excluding voters in the name of inclusion.

More importantly, if I were to target get out the vote messaging to a specific age group, or area of the county, I could be inadvertently stirring the outcome of an election and I don't want any part of that, Dewey!  I'm not smart enough to know what motivates our voters.

I'd rather leave the targeting to those who have a vested interest in the outcome and just make sure that our home has as many "Welcome" mats as possible for guests who decide to check in.

(As an aside, as a teaser to my eventual post related to voters with disabilities and the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, I've often pondered if the fact that older citizens are more likely to vote AND also more likely to be election workers are related.

Human nature, I believe, leads people to associate with others like them.  We feel more comfortable when we see people who look like us--economically, socially, the way we dress, for instance--and tend to frequent places accordingly.

In our elections, we see very few voters with disabilities.  They probably often vote by mail.  Maybe, though, they feel uncomfortable coming in to vote.  Accommodating voters AND workers with disabilities are both important to me.

At the very least, in a turnout view, I am extremely interested in having our cadre of election workers be representative of the voters they serve.  Otherwise, I worry that we could be stifling turnout by not being inclusive, leaving some voters feeling uncomfortable about voting.)

Anyway, I bring all of this up because we have advance voting underway for a Prairie Village city council primary.  Yesterday, a rare 60-degree Saturday in February, our office was open for advance voting from 9 to 3.

We didn't have a single voter.

There are more than 2,000 eligible voters in this primary and we've mailed out about 200 ballots.

Is it bad that we had no voters yesterday?

I suppose it is in that the city paid for 3 workers to be at the ready all day.

But you would have to been purposeful about voting in this race yesterday.  Our office is required to be open for the week before the election for advance voting, but it is about a 30-minute drive from the area of the primary.  Perhaps someone with travel plans next week may have come out, but the overall story of turnout likely will be told Tuesday.

Saturday's turnout was just one data point.  I have mixed feelings about it says--or the fact that we've had fewer than 10 in-person voters since Tuesday--but I do feel all chest-puffy if someone criticizes voters for not participating.

The turnout discussions are more relevant right now as Kansas lawmakers consider moving spring elections to the fall.

I'm cool with that move because I believe people like predictability, and one reason turnout may be low in the spring is the overall awareness that we have elections in the spring.  City candidates often go door-to-door to campaign and, having been a city candidate doing that long ago, I know many persons are unaware of spring elections.

I'd like to see elections every November--city races moved to the fall of odd (not even) years so that every November, there is an election.  Other things naturally will find their way to the November ballots (constitutional amendments and city or school questions) and over time--maybe a long time--the turnout needle would move.

The legislature is considering bills that would do this.  My concern about moving city elections to even years is that it will be much more costly, while moving to odd years is cost-neutral.

Moving city elections to the fall of even years combines our highest turnout election with our most complicated election (city candidate rotation and city/school boundaries result in myriad of ballot styles).  Plus, we'd surely have a two-page ballot, doubling our printing costs, increasing our postage costs, and even creating some tabulation issues because many persons may not return both pages of the ballot.

Further, as nutty as this seems, our election office building is full.  We have no space to securely store the large volume of new ballots we'd have to print.  It sounds crazy to say we would need a new building, but we would.  (Or, the land just next to us goes up for auction next month--maybe we could buy it and build an annex).

Still, a bill that moves elections to the fall (odd or even years, but odd, please) creates a terrific and timely opportunity to include language that schools be available as polling places and that the schools be closed on election day to students.  This would address the safety issues parents have been raising since the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012 and make polling places predictable for our voters.

Predictability is a key lever to improve overall turnout.

The schools are closed in August, when the primary would occur, and if closed on the election day in November--budda-bing, budda-boom, voting life just got much more predictable for our voters.

This school in-service day, or election holiday, was a recommendation of the Presidential Commission and one I advocated to be part of the recommendations.

It's a different kind of Wildcat than the Baker mascot.

But, the combination of spring elections moving to the fall and the November in-service day could be a game-changer that would make a no-voter day even more rare than a 60-degree Saturday in February.

It (Really Is) Election Day!

Today is an election day, Olathe mail-ballot election, and a good day for a couple of snippets.

As I write this, at 1:13 p.m., I'm hearing someone at the front counter dropping off a ballot for the election that closed at noon, with results posted to our web about a half hour ago.

That's unfortunate, of course.  This is a real voter who for what likely was a legitimate reason, did not have a vote count because he delivered his ballot after the election closed.

This was not an issue with the post office.  Regular readers of this blog know that I'm pretty harsh with our local post office, so I feel obliged to trumpet the local post office's great work in this election.

I'm happy to report that during this election, the Olathe Post Office has been stellar.  We received ballot delivery early each morning in a special run.  They called us today after the delivery to say they had one ballot in addition to those delivered, and they brought it.

It's been a great change.  That's not all of the postal news here, though.

Before I went out of the country to observe the presidential election, in fact, I saw an article in The Wall Street Journal that linked to all of my previous post-office and traveling thoughts.

First, being a world traveler and all now, I was intrigued that the article came from London, speaking to the Royal Mail service.

(Speaking of world travel, I actually have a follow-up post to the Georgia visit that I offered to be reviewed by PAE-REACT before posting.  They are crazy busy and I'm sure will be back in touch soon.  So, that piece is coming.)

One of my thoughts when reading about the United State's Postal Service's financial woes has been that the Postal Service leadership has poorly managed things.  I believe the United State Postal Service is doing little to change the trajectory of its losses, either because the service is poorly managed or because the leadership is either hoping for a bailout or to make some other point with Congress.

If we ran a business that lost billions, we'd do what we could to change things, rather than just put our hands up in the air.  I think there is much more in the control of the leadership than they suggest.

Plus, I postulated during a meeting with PEW in August, "What if the post office privatized?"   To my dismay, it wasn't the type of question that pumped up the room.  It didn't even pump me up, and I asked it.  So, maybe it was just the (wait for it....) delivery.

I was just trying to think of creative ways things might change going forward--it's too easy to suggest that voting by mail will cease at some point because of the Postal Service's downward spiral.

So, in response to my August question, I bring to you the Wall Street Journal article:  The Royal Mail did privatize, not without issue, but, hey, that wacky ElectionDiary guy isn't completely in left field, after all!

Speaking of left field, I also share with you some of an email we received a week ago.  We often hear that we could do more to get the word out for an election and we all know the value of outreach, but it's not uncommon for us to be taken to the woodshed for not telling a voter that there wasn't an election.

We have had voters complain to us that we should send a mailing to let them know they didn't have an election.  Really.

Here's an email from someone we missed:

I was unable to find the post card that was sent to me but I went to the Johnson County website and put in my first name, last name, and polling place.  The site returned (a specific polling place). When I went to (it), they told me that there is no polling place.  Why is the website providing incorrect information? This is infuriating... If a voter loses that card, the website is a natural backup. If the website is not providing correct information then you are FAILING the voter. I called the Johnson County Elections phone number and got a recorded message. How do you not provide a live voice on election days (held once a year) to aid the voter.  This is a BIG FAIL by Johnson County. 

 

We did email him back and haven't received a response again.  It is a bit funny, but a fair issue because we are just one county in a large metropolitan area that crosses state lines.  There was a one-question election in Kansas City that day.

 

In fact, some television outlets were reporting that the Olathe election that finished today actually completed last Tuesday.

 

It also highlights a precursor to what surely will be an item in the upcoming Kansas legislative session.  I believe people are conditioned to expect an election in November.  We in the industry know that, at least in Kansas, November elections only occur in even years.  Most voters don't know that.

 

Heck, it took me four years working here before I figured out that leap year was always a presidential election year.  That's obvious trivia even many election geeks don't know.

 

Point is, in Kansas, there is a suggestion of moving spring city elections to November, and I think that's a great idea.  It certainly would have kept our emailing voter's blood from boiling last week.

 

The issue tends to get bundled with the idea of partisan elections for local races.  I don't have an opinion on that aspect, other than that I think the two thoughts should be kept separated.  There are good administrative reasons to move the spring elections to November.

 

One last odd thing about today.  Some local schools, in session yesterday, are out today, a Tuesday, in November.  I'll have an update soon on schools but, in my view, this only supports that having an election school holiday in November (maybe part of that legislative action I just mentioned) is very viable.

 

Vague Threats and Real Disruptions

Nothing frightens election officials more than the lack of a Plan B.

In fact, whenever I'm asked about the potential for an outside force to illegally impact an election, I can rattle off reasons why I don't believe it's possible.

But, could someone disrupt the election?  Cause us to have a bad day?  Absolutely, and we game theory all the time about what-ifs.

However, as we saw during our February snowstorm smackdown during our election, contingency plans can only carry you so far.  Plans B, C, and D may be feel-good scenarios that explode.

In February, for instance, we confirmed with polling places on the Friday before the election that regardless of the weather, they'd be open, only to get calls from them on Monday telling us they would be closed.

So, my back arched with the news earlier this week that all of the Shawnee Mission schools closed after the district received a "vague threat."

Without knowing what school might be impacted, the District locked down all the schools.  That's understandable, but it would be devastating on election day.

What if a "vague threat," was politically motivated, designed to disrupt?  In fact, typing about it here is a bit like giving a potential criminal an idea by writing a good thriller reeking of espionage.  But, not confronting the problem directly seems worse.

We worry all the time about losing a polling place at the last minute.  What if we lost 30?  At 8 a.m.?

I think back to the couple of voters who ventured out in the blizzard in February to their old polling place and upset that a sign wasn't posted that the polling place moved.  They missed the point that the only way we would have been able to post such a sign would have been to dogsled to the locations through impassable roads, hoping to have the signs up before nightfall.

Imagine trying to move 40,000 voters (if we lost 30 locations) on the fly.  I never tried to imagine that until this week.  I'm still trying.

As election administrators, we try to make voting as easy as possible.  The world continually makes it as hard as possible.

We've been spending time in our office going through strategic planning efforts and have reflected much on our role regarding voter turnout.  There are two primary schools of thought:  a) we should do everything we can to raise turnout because that seems to be a noble concept inherent in our role, or b) we could unintentionally impact the results by emphasizing turnout efforts among a demographic (such as young voters) who may be more inclined to vote for one candidate or another.

I fall on the side that we should not strive for higher turnout.  I know that's a bit like saying I don't believe in gravity, but I think it's the best way to ensure neutrality.

But more and more, I feel our role is to be more than the advocate of the voter.   Better, I guess, to say that we must fight for the voter.

I feel like the walls are closing in (or shutting down) on our voters.  We can't run an election with polling places that might shut down, all at once, because of a phone call, no matter how remote that possibility seems.  But we can't keep paring down polling places.

We requested funding for staff members to be able to expand advance voting in light of these issues and that request was denied.  We've got to keep marching in that direction, though, perhaps at least seeking larger sites, if we can't have more sites.

Somewhere this week, I've now gone into aggressor mode, Voters vs. the World.  And if it's a fight the World wants, the World is going to lose.