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Working the Recount – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The biggest question I got from folks was “How much fraud did you see?” The boring answer is “Not much”. There were a lot of simple mistakes on ballots that were corrected by remaking the ballot. Here’s what I did see:

Milwaukee had a more stringent “remake” policy than the ‘burbs. To remake any ballot, it had to be approved by the Board of Canvassers. Once approved, on the Suburban side, the City Clerk would bring the new ballots, old ballots and a marking pen to the table where the judges would clear a space and make the ballot. A number was assigned to the process and recorded on old & new ballot, then on a special list of remade ballots. Old ballot would be filed in manila folder, new ballot would be added to valid ballots. On the Milwaukee side, the judges would be escorted out of the room to the loading dock, sign for a new ballot – which was silver to indicate a recount remake – and then seated at a separate table to complete the work.

One Milwaukee bag arrived at the table unsealed. It was noted on the paperwork and the counts all matched.

Some voters received the wrong ballot for their absentee ballot (ie: from another Ward). In this case, a remade ballot was already in the pile of ballots but sometimes the original was not (as it was filed with the Ward that the ballot belonged to). When a ballot is remade, the original receives a red X, so it wouldn’t be counted. The new ballot (which can’t be verified) received a “NV” to indicate that it’s not verified. The theory is that all those NV ballots will be matched up at the end. I’m not sure that that’s a valid theory.

The most interesting motion I heard from the Board of Canvassers was a discussion of signatures that all looked the same – and the eventual recommendation that the ballots not be counted, and be forwarded to the District Attorney.

The People? The people were nice – on the first day, my judges and I joked about sponsoring “theme” days if the recount dragged on… silly hat day, pajama day…we may or may not have taken down time to admire how well some of the sheriffs take care to maintain their physical shape. I expected more push-back to my presence in the Milwaukee room – and met none. Folks were friendly and non-political. This was a counting job, not a campaign. Only one person (an observer) wore a campaign shirt.

My Milwaukee judges had funny phrases that they used throughout the day – the “donor” pile of envelopes (as they sorted the envelopes by size), the “Rocky” voice, every time he got a vote, “the finger” jokes for the rubber fingertip used to flip through the ballots.

But I may have been lucky – my demeanor was “let’s see that this is done right” while some others seemed to be in “gotcha” mode. We were asking the same questions, but in a different way. Every one of my requests was met without objection, while the next table over had an observer snapping pictures of ballots (allowed) and taking detailed notes “for further review” of seemingly benign issues (the voter “X” the oval instead of filling it in).

I chatted with a number of other folks too – the guy who moves the ballots from back room to the floor, and back again. He told stories of the Prosser campaign, when they thought the recount was done, and stacked the ballots randomly, only to have a second recount ordered, and they had to scramble to put the Wards back in order.

The sheriff officers were friendly and chatted with me. They admitted that the warehouse area made a good place for some midnight jumping jacks…or maybe a Frisbee.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. I think I’d like to be on the other side of the table – it was frustrating to sit there and watch, unable to help. As an observer I could not touch any official documents (except the count sheet)…but I could unjam the stapler and hold the post-it notes. I also served as third (or fourth) set of eyes on the ballots. I made suggestions about organizing, and sometimes kept track of which stacks of 25 had been recounted.

As in life, a smile goes a long way and it opened up learning opportunities as folks were happy to explain what they were doing and why.