respublica

A look back

I read this look at presidential election history and frankly, I thought it was extraordinary and astonishing. Matt Dawson wanted to learn if any past presidential election at all mirrored what was going on this year. He came across the Truman v Dewey year and boy, was it similar to 2020. The one thing we all learned in history class was from the Chicago Tribune headline blasting, Dewey Wins! But there was so much more. Read the whole thread if you're able, what an amazing piece of history.

I have no idea who is going to win today, most experts believe it will be Biden. But who knows these days, it's 2020 after all. What I do know is I am not going to sit around watching cable news all day.

 

We voted!

We got up early (as always) and left for our precinct around 5:30 this morning. It was dark out and we were in a line outside the Collinsville Senior Center for about 15 minutes or so and inside for another 7 before the 6 a.m. voting began. I was the second voter and Dale was the third. He ended up being the 4th person to submit his ballot to the tabulator judge, but he took a couple minutes longer to go over his ballot.

The Senior Center has two precincts, 1 and 2, which lessened the wait a bit as there are two rooms.

What surprised me was having all ballots be the fill in the circle type, not touch screen machines. I guess this is due to the virus and helping to cut down on many people touching the screens. I like getting to keep my pen more than the little stickers given out in the past.

So we did our civic duty and now can sit back and watch how thing go today.

Twas the Day before the Election

I just hope we won't be facing another 2000 election. Or, a 2016 election with half the country refusing to accept the results. It'll be what it is. But here is a question I've wondered about and maybe many others have as well. When are the early voting ballots actually tabulated?

Tabulating the ballots is not the same as counting the early ballots. The early ballots are processed at various times according to individual state election laws. Processing is comparing the signature on the outside envelope to the signature on file in the official record. Each state has their own time for doing this. In Illinois it is two days before the election, in Missouri five days before.  But the ballot in the sealed envelope is not opened at this time in most states.

The actual tabulation of early ballots are normally counted and added to the in-person ballots at the end of the election day. In Illinois this is done after 7 pm on election day when the polls have closed. I remember this very well during my years as a judge. In Missouri it is on election day as is true of most states. There are a few outlier states as usual. Those ballots are then opened and put into the tabulating machine.

Here is a chart showing how all the states handle the processing and actual tabulating.  

I find all this fascinating and frustrating while listening to many news reports trying to explain this. In the end, a state may have x number of early vote ballots but none (mostly) will be putting them into a machine til election day. So no one knows right now who is benefiting from them. No news report can be believed if they tell us such and such a state's early voting results  show one or the other ahead. They can't know this til the polls close.

And, one last thing. Voting is left to the counties and most are well prepared for any eventuality such as voting machine breakdown, the education of the on site judges, etc. Madison County has always made sure the local judges know what's what and why. Plus they are often the most efficient at getting the results out to the public quickly.

Counties who always seem to have problems is mostly due ( in my opinion) to the lack of preparing the on sight election workers.

How many have already voted?

I've been curious about the number of people who've gone out and voted early. Today the New York Times has all the percentages for each state. We've debated when we will vote and have gone back and forth on whether to go early or on election day. I'm a traditionalist at heart and feel election day makes voting kind of satisfying. I was an election judge for 20 years in Madison County which is maybe why the actual day means more to me. And, looking at the percent of early voters for each state, especially Illinois, I'm thinking maybe the precinct won't be terribly crowded. If that many have already voted, it should ease things considerably. The early voters stood in long lines, some waited a couple of hours to vote, made worse because voters from all precincts were in one place, not in individual precincts like on election day.

I may be dreaming, but we shall see. The Times is using the total number of 2016 voters as comparison for each state, admittedly a different time, but all we have.

In any event, 32 percent of Illinois voters have already voted. 19 percent of those in Missouri.

48 percent of Californians have voted, New Mexico and Montana are at 70 percent.

You can look at the totals for all states here. Some states will have election judges with not as much to do next week as other state judges.

How could I not know when to vote?

A question from some place named the Voting Information Center somehow got onto my Facebook page and asked me, "Do you know when to vote in Illinois? Diane, see voting deadlines to make sure you vote on time."

Come on man. We'd have to be living in a cave not to know when to vote. Actually we can actually pick a day there are so many available ahead of the official election day.

Another primary

Update: Well, that post on the undefeated Kennedys didn't hold up well. Last night Joe III lost his primary race to the incumbent senator, Edward Markey. All things come to an end, even Kennedys winning races.

 

 It surprises me some states are still holding primary elections when it's so close to the actual November elections. But Massachusetts is one of them and here is an interesting statistic on the winning percentage of Kennedys on a ballot over the years.

They never lose.

Old voters

Today is the 100th anniversary of the right for women to vote. As amazing as it seems at this point in time, this was as controversial back in 1920 as many issues going on today. Maybe more.

Take this pamphlet for example, click to enlarge

Oddly, The National Association OPPOSED to Woman Suffrage, was headed up by a woman, Josephine Dodge. She believed that allowing women to vote would would decrease women’s work in communities and their ability to effect societal reforms.

And get this pamphlet also opposing the right of women to vote. The point of this is that voting would not improve women's daily life in the same way cleaning things would. To help women see this, they give many helpful cleaning hints. I rather like the idea of cleaning wallpaper with fresh bread. Click to enlarge again.

Also oddly, men at that time must have been ok with women voting since they were the only ones to vote on this amendment.

An election memory

I spent 16 years as an Illinois election judge for Madison County. I often think back on those years and the many elections I spent in the original township building and then the Collinsville Senior Center. I think it was the old township building, the place on Vandalia near the motorcycle store. The first election I worked was in August of 1988, a special election to elect a successor to Rep. Mel Price. Jerry Costello won that day.  In any event many hours in one room for each election, many of which had very few voters. They were long days, get there at 5 in the morning and not leave until after ballots were synced to make sure the number of votes matched up with the number of voters, the absentee ballots from that precinct were opened and tabulated then all were and bundled up to be taken to the Madison County Court House.

But it was also true that Madison County did a fantastic job of running elections. The officials made sure all judges knew ahead of time how things would be run during the day and how to tabulate and turn in at the end. They left no question unanswered ahead of the election.

In the beginning the voters used the punch ballots, then paper ballots which went into a counting machine and later computer screen ballots. If a voter wanted a paper ballot, rather than a machine they could request one.

All of which I am now going over in my mind as I listen to all the news stories on how we are going to vote this November. The virus keeps looming over everything and health safety is upper most in everyone's mind. But how to get a smooth and fair election is going to be the conumdrum.  It's easy to say, mail in ballots only, but as an old judge I can visualize the problems with this. Mail in ballots are traditionally ballots requested by a registered voter, not ballots sent to everyone on the rolls. If a lot of registered voters go this route, there will be quite a bit of time at the close on election night before any results are in because, also on election night the absentee (or mail-in) ballots are not opened until the end. They shouldn't be opened til the end anyway.

Will the judges not have to come to the precinct until 7 in the evening and then open all the mailed ballots and then tabulate? Or will they be in precinct all day tabulating what has already been sent in and then ballots which arrived that same day?

Or will we be be going to a combination of mail in and in person?

No matter how we vote, each voter has been required to be who they are supposed to be on the official voter roll. And be registered to actually vote.

Oh Iowa

While watching the fiasco that was the Iowa caucuses last night, I found myself laughing at the frustration all the cable news people were exhibiting. No matter what channel or political bent these news experts represented, they were getting testy and downright angry over the delays. They'd said everything several times over and were tired, sick of sitting on those panel chairs and just wanted to get out of there. At around 10:30, I began to be less interested in results than watching to see which cable channel panel would break camp first and just leave.

And rightly so. Once again Iowa's way of putting on a caucus rather than a traditional ballot primary looks like what it is: a bad idea. And, to use some sort of app to record precinct votes made things worse. If this night doesn't provoke a change in making Iowa the first state to go during a primary season, something is very wrong.

Iowa Caucuses..still a mystery

CNN has a story this morning which tries to explain how the Iowa caucuses work as opposed to normal state primaries. I tried my best to read this and understand, but they lost me. The whole process is mystery wrapped in an enigma.

I've linked the explanation so you can see if you understand it. We will learn which democratic candidate ends up winning Iowa or, rather, which candidate wins the most actual votes and which wins the most delegates. Two different things. CNN will judge the winner on who gets the most delegates.

I've said for years that Iowa plays too important a role in who becomes the person to beat in primaries and this explanation does not change my mind.