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Dec. 7th, 2016 08:38 pmObserving a recount is one of the most tedious things I’ve ever done. It requires close, prolonged attention without offering anything at all for me to do. I’m an observer. I’m just there to watch and make sure that everything’s done the way it ought to be.
I took a full price cab this morning because I was running late. It was a tiny bit cheaper than I expected— $21 for the fare and $4 for the tip.
When I got there, they were telling people to sign in by party affiliation. What they didn’t mention was that only Republicans, Libertarians, and Greens are allowed to challenge ballots. Anybody at all can observe and take notes. A lot of people signed in as Democrats and then went back out and signed in as Greens so that they could challenge if they saw something that merited it. I stayed a Democrat because I was the only one at the table where I ended up. I didn’t see any Libertarians present, but there could have been.
The Republicans challenged every single precinct counted. Before a given sealed container of ballots was opened, the Republicans would challenge it on the grounds that they consider the recount illegal until the courts have made a final ruling and demand that the container and ballots be sequestered and considered invalid. The lawyers working for the Republicans had the speech down so thoroughly that they could recite it without any actual pauses. It making sense to people hearing it didn’t matter as long as they said the magic words. They also put in a similar challenge at the point when the election staff started tallying votes.
Everybody else in the room kind of got peeved with them because each challenge took time and because none of us, including the Republicans, expected the results to change. Well, it’s possible that the people who were so eager to be Greens so that they could challenge ballots thought it would be a thing to happen. But I was there for eight hours and watched three precincts get recounted. There wasn’t a single ballot that any of us disagreed with the officials over. They had to explain a few things about how the votes tally.
I hadn’t realized that it’s a valid thing to both vote straight party and fill in the bubbles next to candidates in some or all of the races, but I’d say that about 75% of voters did that. Maybe one in ten of those folks actually voted both straight party and split ticket. Michigan law says that specific choices in specific races override anything in the straight ticket section. Which led to things like people voting straight ticket Green Party *and* for Gary Johnson for President. A couple of Bernie Sanders write in votes ended up being votes for Hillary Clinton because Sanders was not on the (very short) list of legal write in candidates but those voters also marked their ballots as straight ticket Democrats.
There were some silly write ins, such as Bruce Wayne, and one person wrote in 'Anyone else, please.' One person wrote in 'J.C.' in every single race on the ballot.
We only had one out and out impossible ballot. That voter had filled in the circles to vote for four different parties, straight ticket, and at least three different Presidential candidates. All of us at the table looked at that one and kind of went, 'WTF?'
The ladies at the table had already gotten started when I got there at about 8:45. They’d had one box with a broken seal that they couldn’t count because of that. It was documented that the seal broke during transit. I didn’t get a clear idea of what the procedure is in cases like that. The second box turned out to contain only unmarked ballots and ballot sleeves and so wasn’t countable at all. The third box arrived shortly after I did and was countable. That precinct had about 650 ballots. The counters assured us that that was a large precinct, but the second we got had almost 900 ballots, and the third had 1409 (and took all afternoon).
When I left a little after 5:00, the Greens were turning people away because they had too many observers for the number of tables active. Also, the local recount isn’t running past 6:00, so folks aren’t really needed for the 5:00 to 9:00 that the Greens recruited for.
Scott and Cordelia ended up coming to get me because dropping Cordelia’s friend off got them about halfway there anyway. They had some trouble finding the building but managed eventually. Cordelia has asked me not to go again. I’m debating. I’m really pretty thoroughly wrecked at this point.
I could tell when my anti-anxiety medication wore off because suddenly I *needed* my email and my web browser and anything at all to keep my brain from remembering where I was. I thought about leaving then as I’m not supposed to take more than one dose of the stuff in a single day, but I thought I could manage. And I did. I just feel really terrible now. The medication really isn’t meant to get me through 9-10 hours at a go.
The thing with Cordelia is that she needs help with her homework right now. She’s got two big projects due early next week. Scott’s helping with one, and I’m helping with the other. It’s frustrating because the terminology doesn’t make sense to me. Cordelia needs to write an essay arguing either that a mandatory service year would be a good thing or that it wouldn’t. She has to have a certain number of 'claims,' each backed up with evidence. As far as I can tell, claims are assertions. They’re supposed to find sources of information on their own, without library access or guidance on how to tell good online sources from bad ones or what to do when multiple sites/authors use the exact same text and it’s not clear which site originated it.
The teacher in this class has apparently told her classes that their previous work in this direction was 'garbage.'
I took a full price cab this morning because I was running late. It was a tiny bit cheaper than I expected— $21 for the fare and $4 for the tip.
When I got there, they were telling people to sign in by party affiliation. What they didn’t mention was that only Republicans, Libertarians, and Greens are allowed to challenge ballots. Anybody at all can observe and take notes. A lot of people signed in as Democrats and then went back out and signed in as Greens so that they could challenge if they saw something that merited it. I stayed a Democrat because I was the only one at the table where I ended up. I didn’t see any Libertarians present, but there could have been.
The Republicans challenged every single precinct counted. Before a given sealed container of ballots was opened, the Republicans would challenge it on the grounds that they consider the recount illegal until the courts have made a final ruling and demand that the container and ballots be sequestered and considered invalid. The lawyers working for the Republicans had the speech down so thoroughly that they could recite it without any actual pauses. It making sense to people hearing it didn’t matter as long as they said the magic words. They also put in a similar challenge at the point when the election staff started tallying votes.
Everybody else in the room kind of got peeved with them because each challenge took time and because none of us, including the Republicans, expected the results to change. Well, it’s possible that the people who were so eager to be Greens so that they could challenge ballots thought it would be a thing to happen. But I was there for eight hours and watched three precincts get recounted. There wasn’t a single ballot that any of us disagreed with the officials over. They had to explain a few things about how the votes tally.
I hadn’t realized that it’s a valid thing to both vote straight party and fill in the bubbles next to candidates in some or all of the races, but I’d say that about 75% of voters did that. Maybe one in ten of those folks actually voted both straight party and split ticket. Michigan law says that specific choices in specific races override anything in the straight ticket section. Which led to things like people voting straight ticket Green Party *and* for Gary Johnson for President. A couple of Bernie Sanders write in votes ended up being votes for Hillary Clinton because Sanders was not on the (very short) list of legal write in candidates but those voters also marked their ballots as straight ticket Democrats.
There were some silly write ins, such as Bruce Wayne, and one person wrote in 'Anyone else, please.' One person wrote in 'J.C.' in every single race on the ballot.
We only had one out and out impossible ballot. That voter had filled in the circles to vote for four different parties, straight ticket, and at least three different Presidential candidates. All of us at the table looked at that one and kind of went, 'WTF?'
The ladies at the table had already gotten started when I got there at about 8:45. They’d had one box with a broken seal that they couldn’t count because of that. It was documented that the seal broke during transit. I didn’t get a clear idea of what the procedure is in cases like that. The second box turned out to contain only unmarked ballots and ballot sleeves and so wasn’t countable at all. The third box arrived shortly after I did and was countable. That precinct had about 650 ballots. The counters assured us that that was a large precinct, but the second we got had almost 900 ballots, and the third had 1409 (and took all afternoon).
When I left a little after 5:00, the Greens were turning people away because they had too many observers for the number of tables active. Also, the local recount isn’t running past 6:00, so folks aren’t really needed for the 5:00 to 9:00 that the Greens recruited for.
Scott and Cordelia ended up coming to get me because dropping Cordelia’s friend off got them about halfway there anyway. They had some trouble finding the building but managed eventually. Cordelia has asked me not to go again. I’m debating. I’m really pretty thoroughly wrecked at this point.
I could tell when my anti-anxiety medication wore off because suddenly I *needed* my email and my web browser and anything at all to keep my brain from remembering where I was. I thought about leaving then as I’m not supposed to take more than one dose of the stuff in a single day, but I thought I could manage. And I did. I just feel really terrible now. The medication really isn’t meant to get me through 9-10 hours at a go.
The thing with Cordelia is that she needs help with her homework right now. She’s got two big projects due early next week. Scott’s helping with one, and I’m helping with the other. It’s frustrating because the terminology doesn’t make sense to me. Cordelia needs to write an essay arguing either that a mandatory service year would be a good thing or that it wouldn’t. She has to have a certain number of 'claims,' each backed up with evidence. As far as I can tell, claims are assertions. They’re supposed to find sources of information on their own, without library access or guidance on how to tell good online sources from bad ones or what to do when multiple sites/authors use the exact same text and it’s not clear which site originated it.
The teacher in this class has apparently told her classes that their previous work in this direction was 'garbage.'
