- Lack of adequate training
Almost 1/4 of the precincts didn't intend to hand count the write-in votes at all. Due to our efforts at Sonia's office - getting volunteers to talk to polling place wardens about it, and in several cases calling the Boston elections department who in turn called the polling places - 65 of 73 precincts did turn in tally sheets, and the 8 that didn't were counted on Thursday.
But what this indicates is that polling place workers and wardens were not sufficiently trained - it is inconceivable that all of them got the training they needed and yet so many wardens didn't even know they were going to count the votes.
- Lack of counting procedures
It's not especially difficult or complex to hand-count votes, but you do need to have a plan for how to do it. Which ballots to count? Where do you put them? Do you count multiple stacks in parallel? How many people for each stack? How do you tally the results? What numbers do you keep track of? Where to put the tally sheets when done?
Obviously, if you don't even know you're going to count the votes, you don't have a plan for how to count the votes - as evidenced by the warden who asked one of Sonia's volunteers how to do the count. Many polling places that did know they were going to count the votes, also lacked plans. Volunteers at many of them observed confusion as poll workers, with the best of intentions, had to make up procedures on the fly.
- Different standards
The gold standard for hand counting ballots is the "intent of the voter" standard, but it is unclear how many poll workers were aware of that, and the City of Boston cannot yet confirm what standard (if any) they were instructed to use. From what volunteers observed, they used a variety. In particular, some precincts counted ballots with stickers or write-in votes but without the oval filled in (the right thing to do), and others did not.
- Ballots deliberately left uncounted
At some precincts, they decided to tally up all of the clear, error-free votes, but set aside any ballots there might be any question about, even if the vote was clear. They did not tally these ballots for any candidate, and sealed them separately for city hall to handle. City hall was not aware that the precincts expected them to count these ballots, so just used the numbers off the tally sheets as the official tallies.
- Counting outside of public view
At many precincts, perhaps even a majority, observers were barred from watching the count. At many of those precincts where observers were allowed to watch the count, they were made to stand too far away to see what was on the ballots. Massachusetts law talks about having ballots "audibly counted in public view, one by one" for good reason. Public observation is how we know the votes are counted properly.
The Boston Globe is working on an article about all of this, which I think may appear on Monday. If you have a story to tell, email DSlack@globe.com (and comment here!).
Call the Sonia Chang-Diaz campaign at 617-848-0875 and help them collect some signatures this weekend. We'll need 500 valid signatures, 50 from each of ten wards, by Monday afternoon, to ensure that these votes get counted. |
