October Surprises

For folks playing 2020 election bingo, October brought few surprises aside from the fallout following the death of iconic Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 

October Surprise bingo card posted on Reddit by uRedhands1994/

 

Throughout October I worked full time with some overtime at the Forsyth County Board of Elections office. Several of the full time staff worked 7 days a week during election season. I cherished having at least 1 day a week at home to rest when I could; didn't want to burn out or get sick. 
 
On Tuesday and Thursday nights during board meetings I was asked to help pre-process mail in ballots so they could be scanned in batches as they were received. However, mail in ballots were not counted (tabulated) until election day November 3rd. Of the ballots I personally glanced at, roughly 70% included votes for Biden. Very few votes were for third party candidates, less than 1%. A few people didn't vote for any presidential candidate yet voted for down ballot candidates. Military personnel and citizens living abroad had the option to mail in a paper ballot or vote electronically by email; we received some of both. Board members validated email votes by verbally calling out each line item vote while another person marked a paper ballot which could be scanned. One night I heard 3 such verbal to paper vote verifications. One of them was from a soldier who voted for Biden but no other candidate down ballot. To be precise the person reading the email clarified each line item by saying "governor, no vote; senate, no vote, etc." all the way down the ballot. One woman wrote in her husband's name for president on her ballot instead of voting for Biden or Trump. Also saw one each write in votes for Hillary, Bernie, Mitt, Burr, and Cedric the Goat. I pity the fools who wasted their vote so childishly. 
 
A web camera in the board room enabled meetings to be live streamed for anyone to watch online. Despite meetings being quite boring, at least 8 people logged in to watch. Perhaps they were campaign officials, concerned citizens, and/or just sad lonely people with nothing better to do. Bless their hearts. 
 
On a Tuesday someone came into the office dressed in a T-Rex costume to drop off their ballot. I did not see the costumed voter but heard several co-workers talking about him/her. Most days I was in the back doing data entry though one day I was asked to work in the front lobby to receive ballots dropped off by voters. I looked at each ballot envelope very carefully to make sure all were signed and witnessed properly. Knowing how my friend Gail's ballot was rejected in Guilford County because of a missing witness zip code, I made sure every envelope I received was beyond reproach. Found out later that the Forsyth County board discussed missing witness zip code concerns and determined they would accept ballots without witness zips so long as the address was readable; all board members agreed zips were not necessary since zip could easily be verified. 
 
Two of my supervisor leads were in their 20s, very nice and professional young people, one female and one male. Abigail was a temp like me though she had been working in the BOE office longer than me. Nate was a permanent staff member responsible for overseeing voter registrations. I envied their energy and stamina. They both worked lots of overtime hours, way more than me. Abigail told me she worked extra hours to pay down her college student loans. For fun she created a workplace bingo game which included common daily occurrences in the office, things we saw or heard on a regular basis. I was mentioned in one of the squares... "Suz asked what else she can do" because anytime I caught up on data entry I offered to help coworkers with other tasks. Some thought me strange for not relaxing to enjoy breaks. I told them I just wanted to make sure the BOE got their money's worth from me. Truthfully there weren’t many opportunities for breaks. Each day was busier than the last. One day I didn't eat lunch until 2:45pm because I was too busy to notice what time it was until my stomach growled. 
 
Phone calls from confused and/or panicked voters increased as we got closer to election day. After proving myself to be competent and useful I was trained to help answer incoming calls while continuing to do data entry. 80% of the calls were general, repetitive, easy to answer but 20% were weird and/or time consuming. 
 
One man called multiple times in a panic because ballotrax, our online ballot tracking portal, indicated his wife's ballot had been accepted by the board though she hadn't received it or voted yet. Long story short... postal carrier had mistakenly delivered husband and wife ballots to neighbor who voted one of the ballots not realizing it wasn't his, even though someone else’s name and address were on the ballot envelope. Bless his heart. Error was discovered because husband checked ballotrax and called office demanding issue be investigated and resolved. Improper vote by neighbor was cancelled (spoiled) as he was given opportunity to request and receive new ballot. Also, husband and wife were sent fresh ballots so they could cast their votes. Problem solved.
 
During the first week of ballot pre-processing in Forsyth County, roughly 500 out of 10,000 ballots were not opened or scanned because of issues like missing signatures on the envelopes or missing witness info. To expedite pre-processing, mail sorters looked for missing signatures and missing witness info on ballot envelopes so those envelopes could be pulled aside and voters contacted ASAP to correct deficiencies. 
 
In NC the preliminary mail in ballot rejection rate was 3%. Surprisingly, neighboring Guilford County had the highest rate of ballots set aside of all 100 NC counties -- roughly 10%. Many questionable ballots were corrected and/or accepted upon second review so Guilford rate dropped to 5% by mid October.
 
Tim Tjusii had been deputy director of elections in Guilford County before ascending to director in Forsyth County. Tim is exceptionally smart, organized, and professional; exactly the kind of person a community needs in that position. The citizens of Guilford County, and elections staff specifically, surely missed Tim during the 2020 election cycle.