5 Votes Recovered

As an official election inspector for Ann Arbor, it was my duty to help assure a free and fair election. I believe we did a good job. The challengers from both parties agreed; we also removed cordial with various poll watchers, including those from the Moveon PAC.

There were 1477 ballots cast where I worked from a base of 1812 registered voters. There were 446 straight Democratic votes and 117 straight Republican votes. Kerry beat Bush 1158 to 300.

Invalid writeins are my lasting concern. In Michigan, a write in does not count if it does not refer to a registered candidate. This is an obscure law. It took effort to convince other poll workers that we needed to inspect each ballot to insure that the machine tabulated the votes properly.

We discovered one ballot where the voter’s pen strayed and accidentally cast a writein vote for Board of Regents. When we saw that the write-in vote had no candidate’s name, we determined that the machine had improperly interpreted the ballot as overvoted. We corrected the machine tapes by writing “+1” by the names of Maynard and Debusschere.

Another ballot had a stray dot which the machine interpreted as a preference for a no-name write in candidate; two ballots contained clearly expressed preferences for a no-name write in candidate. Those ballots were marked with straight party preferences for the Democratic party. We reverted those invalid writein votes to the Democratic cadidates, adding one vote to County Treasurer McClary and two votes to Council Member Easthope.

We discovered no huge number of votes. Still, when reporting vote totals, I insist on perfection, not close enough. Further, close races do occur; I am very comfortable that any recount of our precinct will validate our results.

Michigan vote - 51% in...

So far WXYZ-TV // Detroit reports:

U.S. President (MI Results)

John Kerry 1,103,656 52%
George Bush 1,018,611 48%

36% Votes counted in Michigan

WXYZ-TV // Detroit Reports 36% of votes counted in Michigan:

U.S. President (MI Results)
John Kerry 766,276 51%
George Bush 733,556 48%

30% votes counted..Sen. Kerry takes back the lead

According to WXYZ-TV // Detroit Sen. Kerry takes the lead with 30% of the votes counted.

U.S. President (MI Results)
John Kerry 632,136 52%
George Bush 567,095 47%

Latest Numbers for Michigan - Bush ahead

According to the latest numbers on WXYZ-TV here in Detroit.

U.S. President (MI Results)

George Bush 331,953 54%
John Kerry 272,987 45%

Michigan TIE so far

Bush and Kerry are reported to be:
Bush 50%
Kerry 50%

Courtesy of WDIV Channel 4

Ann Arbor's Ward 5 Precinct 9

We had a busy start. We had about 50 people in line when the polls opened at 7am; the line grew to an estimated 100 people in line to vote. We cleared the line at about 11:30am. We have had about 500 votes cast.

We have had challengers from both major parties; everyone has been very cordial and helpful. While they call themselves challengers, they have not challenged any voters. They do challenge procedures on occasion; we have handled those challenges informally to everyone’s satisfaction.

We also had poll watchers from a 527 organization, the Moveon pac. They have a list of voter names and they are testing various get-out-the-vote methods. They asked for permission to question voters inside the building. At first, we considered them to be a partisan organization and asked them to stay 100 feet away. They appealed, we called city hall. We are now treating them as a non partisan organization; they may contact voters inside the precinct.

For the record, Ann Arbor is using a new methodology for filling out the poll book (the official of those who have voted). Instead of writing voter names in the poll book when the voters cast their ballots, we place preprinted stickers in the poll book when voters receive their ballots. We started with two voter lists; A-M and N-Z. As the day progressed, we split that into three voter lists and “load balanced” by tweaking the contents of each book. The first book, for example, went from A-F to A-E when that line got too long.

Oh Yeah
The Ann Arbor Police did show up. I went outside to check for illegal campaigning and a single officer was in his car staying warm. He indicated that the police would not be coming inside, they would be driving by on occassion.

Safety a priority at Detroit area precincts

I noticed a heavy police presence at my voting precinct.
My daughter’s school (also a precinct) had police activity as well.

Below is text from a letter sent home from my Daughter’s school in Plymouth, MI:

After several weeks of discussion and planning, the district has developed a plan that will provide additional staff for our school to help direct traffic both inside and outside of the building. The goal is to create as little distraction as possible for our students and teachers. We also have the cooperation of our local police department and will have an officer assigned to our building to help as well.

Please feel confident that many hours of discussion and planning have taken place to ensure a safe school building for the children to learn. The major focus is separating the voters from our students, and we will provide staff and signs to direct voters to the correct area of the building.

UPDATE:
The Detroit Free Press reports Police called to Detroit voting site

FREE PRESS STAFF REPORT

Poll workers called police officers to a church in Detroit about two hours after voting began today to keep order.

Four poll watchers said to be from the Republican Party were inside the church’s polling area, asking for names of people as they checked in to vote.

“They’re challenging some of the people as to whether or not their current registration is valid,” said Gene Claxton, head deacon of Unity Temple of the Apostolic Faith on Wyoming. The church is a voting site for four precincts.

Troubles in Detroit

A few problems have been reported in Detroit so far today.
WDIV has the following report:

Voters have called Local 4 to report that one precinct does not have ballots and another is without electricity. The station was checking into the reports with Detroit City Clerk Jackie Curry.

I was able to vote at my precinct this morning without any difficulties. The only unusual thing I noticed was a pretty obvious Police presence.

Heavy Turnout in West Michigan

Heavy turnout in the 10 precincts I’ve been in as poll challenger supervisor. Rain stopped about 8:00.

Rain coming down, but lines are forming

The rain is coming down pretty hard in the Detroit metro area this morning, but the local news reports lines were forming long before the polls opened at 7:00 AM EST. The rain won’t stop me either, even though it has decided to drip into my family room!
I am off to vote this morning.

West Michigan GOTV

Just arrived back from my county HQ. We prepared materials for all 100 poll challengers who will log republican voting, many with PDA’s that will be downloaded to Washington on an hourly basis. 4 students put up 400 Bush/Cheney signs along major roads, should be a heck of a sight in the morning. We are still getting light showers but supposed to clear up by noon. East side of state supposed to get rain all day (these same conditions existed when Engler squeeked out a victory in ‘90 after being 10-15 pts down in polls a couple days before election day). Time for shut eye, back at it in the morning.

Official Preparations

I am an election inspector for the City of Ann Arbor. While I do have partisan sympathies, I will stow them tomorrow as I work to ensure a free and fair election. I have worked as a precint chair many times, the last time in November, 1996.

To help prepare me for the election, the City of Ann Arbor has put me through two training sessions; here are some impressions:

• Michigan’s Secretary of State is working very hard to assure that no Florida style snafu’s occur in Michigan. The city is actually hiring lawyers to work as election inspectors. Theoretically, lawyers know more about election law; they also are less likely to be intimidated by strident partisans.
  
• We may have actual challengers challenging voters this year. In the past, people that called themselves challengers acted more like poll watchers.
  
• The police are insisting on visiting each precinct. These visits concern potential terrorism. The city stresses that there are no specific threats of election day violence.
  

Also, there will IMO likely be rare cases where a voter wishes to vote one way but election law dictates that the ballot be read another way.

1. One can vote a straight party. Voting straight Republican casts a vote for President Bush.
   
2. One can override straight party votes. One can vote straight Republican and vote for Senator Kerry with two marks, one in the straight party section and one in the president section.
   
3. One cannot override straight party votes with a fictitious write in candidate. Suppose a voter marks their ballot as Republican in the straight party section and for fictitious write-in candidate “Nun Othea Buv” in the President section.
   
   
   
   1. The voter fills out the ballot.
      
   2. The voter places the ballot into the Optech III-P Eagle machine. The machine tallies one undetermined write in vote and shuttles the ballot into a special bin.
      
   3. After the polls close, the machine indicates that at least one ballot includes a write-in vote for president. Poll workers retrieve the ballots which include write in votes and locate the ballot attempts to cast a vote for “Nun Othea Buv” as president.
      
   4. Poll workers note that “Nun Othea Buv” is not a registered write in candidate for president. They are supposed to note that the voter chose to vote straight Republican and correct the machine printed totals tape to indicate another vote for President Bush.
      
   
   

This peculiarity was not discussed at any training meeting. IMO, it is a clear case where law dictates (in the Special Handling section, near the bottom) that we not honor plainly expressed voter intent. Similarly, if a voter votes for George Bush and for “Nun Othea Buv” as write in candidate for president, the Optech machine will count that ballot as overvoted. Election Inspectors are supposed to revert that vote to President Bush.

I express these items in a more alarmist fashion on my blog.

Local News Coverage in Detroit

At the very moment I write this, Sen. John Kerry and friends are having one last rally in Joe Louis Arena in downtown Detroit. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Michigan native, Stevie Wonder are all pushing for their fellow Democrats to get out and vote.
Earlier today I heard a NewsTalk 760 WJR report Sen. Kerry’s team had already claimed victory in Michigan and closed many of their offices. Apparently this was premature, hence this late rally.

A new poll taken by local station WDIV has Sen. Kerry leading 50% to President Bush’s 47%.

A video clip of the poll and another from WXYZ detailing some rather disturbing information from Get out of the Vote phone calls are detailed in my blog, Blom Blog.

Western Michigan Postings

Greetings from Holland, MI. I will be posting notes and observations from the west side of Michigan.
To follow up on Dan’s post below, the weather forecast for the west side of the state for election day: AM showers giving way to partly sunny skies by evening. The eastern side of the state is slated for rain most of the day. This should favor the heavily Republican west side of the state when compared with the heavily Democrat east side of the state.

Weather changes some plans...

Both Sen. Kerry and First Lady Laura Bush will swing through Michigan today with a last minute push to get out the votes. Due to some rather rotten weather here in the Detroit area, Sen. Kerry’s team decided to move his rally indoors at the Joe Louis Arena.
It is not clear whether the First Lady will speak outside or inside when she visits North of Detroit in the suburbs.

Nearly 150,000 people lost power in the Detroit area over the weekend due to some powerful wind storms. Local Power Company officials are scrambling to return power to those affected. Schools are being targeted first, since this is where most voting precincts take place in the State of Michigan.

Michigan Coverage

I am honored to be a correspondent from the great state of Michigan.
Michigan is one of the battle ground states and is currently governed by a Democratic Governor, but is nearly a dead tie in the latest polls. Both President Bush and Sen. Kerry have spent a great deal of time in our state this year. President Bush even visited my hometown of Marquette, the first President to visit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in almost 100 years.
Tuesday’s weather
A possible deterrent to voters….High of 52 with an 80% chance for rain.
Two Proposals on the Michigan Ballot as well.