In the world of election management, those are terrible numbers.<\/p>\n

\n
• Vote Centers were open for ten days before election day. 27% of voters cast ballots in the first 10 days. 73% voted on election day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  Election officials had projected a much higher early voting percentage. They staffed and set up vote centers thinking that a much smaller percentage of people would vote on election day. Some election-management experts speculate that the early voting option\u2014in play for the first time\u2014was not as accepted by voters as had been hoped for, because voters, typically, are wary of any change in procedures.<\/p>\n

  \n
  • Long wait times primarily resulted from technical issues with the electronic pollbooks (Poll Pads) that are used to check in voters as they arrive at Vote Centers. Even though ample network bandwidth was available, the Poll Pads had issues synchronizing date with the voter database, and the voter search function was too limited for the size of the county\u2019s electorate. This resulted in delays as voters checked in. Also, some Vote Center had fewer Poll Pads than needed to handle voter turnout on Election Day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    There\u2019s plenty of blame to go around, but LA County\u2019s report pins a big chunk of it on the company\u2014Missouri-based Knowink\u2014that programs and maintains the electronic pollbook system.<\/p>\n

    \n
    • While there was a perception among voters and the media that [the new ballot-marking machines] were not operable and contributed to wait times, generally this was not the case.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Having spent 10 years and $300 million dollars designing a custom-made voting system, LA County\u2019s election administration has a big stake in reassuring the public that they made the right decision. To their credit, in the report, they acknowledge that they made many mistakes, understaffing help desks and some Vote Centers, and not adequately addressing a previously identified problem with the gears in some ballot printers, which caused jamming that further slowed the flow of voters. But “problems” with the new ballot-marking system, they contend, were less about the machines not working and more about not deploying enough of them.<\/p>\n

      A chart in the executive summary lists the problems and offers potential solutions, The chart illuminates the scope of failings on Super Tuesday in America\u2019s largest voting jurisdiction: Excessive wait times. Short-staffing at Vote Centers. Inadequate poll worker training; Late delivery of 17,000 vote-by-mail ballots to voters. Discrepancies between official publications of Vote Center locations and actual locations. Malfunctioning voter hotline. Problems with Vote Center set-up and deployment of resources.<\/p>\n

      Between now and November 2020, LA County election officials have a lot to do to make sure none of these problems happen again. To that end, the report includes a to-do list whose succinct bullet points only hint at the amount of additional behind-the-scenes planning, meetings, logistical changes and staff overtime it will take to improve the outcome in November\u2014the kind of grunt work that is invisible to voters, but crucial to the integrity of elections.<\/p>\n

      They\u2019ll try, because no election administrator wants to be the lead story on CNN on election night, and the vast majority of people in this line of work want to get it right. But there are no guarantees. Election day, no matter where you vote, is a crap shoot for election managers, and things happen that cannot be anticipated or even, sometimes, imagined. Good luck, Mr. Logan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      For Los Angeles County election chief Dean Logan, Tuesday, March 3, 2020 was, to quote a famous children’s book, “a terrible, horrible, no good,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3027,3538,573],"tags":[3563,3565,3564],"yoast_head":"\n