Reply #21: HCPB and who's in charge around here ??? [View All]

[gracie76]

According to the office of the Secretary of State, the various and individual counties may select their own voting equipment and procedures....with the proviso that the equipment is approved by the Secretary of State (as to being HAVA compliant, for instance)and also the proviso that there is some kind of HAVA compliant equipment available at the polling places..and, of course all of the various laws, state and county that have to do with how you conduct elections/Government Codes, in other words. (Yolo Counties VotePad..is probably the least expensive and best, I hear, of the HAVA-compliant equipment). COUNTIES MAY, if they wish,conduct their elections using paper and pen/indelible pencil (whatever); the option is that of the county. And as long as there is some sort of HAVA-compliant equipment available for the handicapped voter, the county is in compliance with the federal law, and the state's law and government codes. Sacramento County (my county of residence) does not use Diebold, but does use an optical scan machine made by ES&S...the voter marks the ballot (fills in the bubbles...at least that was what was done the last time I worked the polls), and then the voter inserts the ballot into the M-100 optical scan machine, which records the votes on a tape and a chip inside the machine. (The actual ballot drops down into the black box...where it stays until the end of the day....an actual hard copy ballot). There will be two copies of the tape with the vote count on it--one goes with the chip that is inside the machine and that is doing the actual counting...and the other one is turned in to the Reg.of voters along with the machine/equipment and all the ballots, etc. at the end of the day.
When the ballots get to the Reg. of voters central counting facility, after the polls close at 8 p.m., their counting starts. The ballots are run through the scanners at the RoV office to see if they agree with what is on the tapes/chip. In the case of an unusual difference, the ballots themselves can be taken aside and re-counted, by hand. The ABSENTEE BALLOTS are counted, starting 7 days prior to election day. The Provisional ballots and Absentee ballots that are turned in on election day must be opened and verified as being from legally registered voters, etc.....then they are also run through a scanner and those results are added to the regular ballots and the previously counted Absentee ballots. THE COUNTING ITSELF can be watched by the public, any member of the public, including the media, cameras and all, can come to the office of the RoV and watch the procedures, through glass windows....you can't get in, ask questions or in any way obstruct the procedure. After all this there is a 28-day canvass....(I'll have to figure out exactly what that means...) before the final count is considered done/legal etc. IF THE PRECINCT CREW IS STILL AWAKE ENOUGH TO CHECK IT...THE CREW CAN CHECK THE PRINTED TAPE ON THE ACTUAL VOTE TO SEE IF IT MORE OR LESS MATCHES WHAT WOULD BE EXPECTED IN THE WAY OF A VOTING PATTERN IN THAT PARTICULAR PRECINCT--BEFORE TURNING ANYTHING IN. THE TAPES DO (or DID when I was working there) show the votes in each race, and if you know your voters, you can see if something is out of whack. The people at the polling place have information there that tells them exactly how many voters have voted absentee, and how many voters could be coming in to the polls to vote in person. If they have been doing this for a while, and at the same polling place, they pretty much know what to expect in the way of turnout...and also in the way of political leanings of their voters..THERE WILL ALWAYS BE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEBODY TO GET IN THERE AND MANIPULATE THE RESULTS, SO....we have to be vigilant...check the results -- go into the REg. of Voters office and ask to see the results of the count. Those poor souls stay there until 2 or 3 in the morning to run through the original count. It is up to us to check and see if everything looks copacetic. I hope you are not on overload. I AM...thank you to everyone for taking an interest in this and let's all keep our eyes and ears open. gc