What I Learned as a Poll Inspector in California
There’s no sugar-coating it. There’s something very wrong with our voting system. What’s my proof? I watched it firsthand. I worked as a Poll Inspector at a precinct in Pasadena, CA during the 2016 Presidential primary. It’s been more than a week since the primary and I’ve finally wrapped my head around the experience. It was enlightening to say the least, but not in a good way. Here is what I learned and it goes way beyond your candidate versus my candidate. This affects all of us and all the issues you care about.
There is No Way Every Vote Counted
I don’t mean that they’re not counting the ballots. California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, has promised that all ballots cast in the primary, including provisionals, will be counted. But that doesn’t mean every ballot was cast in a valid way. There are a multitude of ways to unintentionally void a ballot. LA County has a PBR (Precinct Ballot Reader) machine consisting of a scanner that reads a ballot for errors. But it doesn’t catch all of the problems and the machines are notorious for malfunctioning.
During this primary election, the PBR machines needed a password — and Poll Inspectors weren’t informed of that. Most Inspectors got an automated call on official phones with the password. Not creatively, “12345.” But some precincts never got that call or it came too late. So their machines were down most of the day or entirely. I, however, received that automated phone call at least four different times over the course of election day.
What happens when the PBR machine goes down? It basically means that there isn’t a safety net to alert voters of errors on their ballot. So the Ballot Clerk simply slips it into the ballot box and that’s it. In this case, there is no way to ensure the validity of the ballot. The end result is multiple precincts vulnerable to a high rate of voided ballots.
For example, there were 34 candidates running for Senate this year. So the names for the contest spanned two different pages, but the voter can only select one name. Even though there was a caution message before that race, many voters still selected two candidates accidentally. When they inserted their ballot into the PBR, they got an error receipt. So that ballot was voided and another one was issued. At my precinct, we voided over 100 ballots due to mistakes with the Senate race. That means, at those precincts with broken PBR machines, many people likely voted for two Senate candidates, which voided their vote entirely for that race.
Provisional ballots, which riddled California’s primary, are especially vulnerable to errors. The voter must complete many different lines of information, and complete legibly enough, to ensure that county workers can verify the provisional ballot. If the ballot is deemed unverifiable, then the voter is sent a time-sensitive notice in the mail. But that only happens if the address is legible in the first place and the voter must respond by a certain date. Most importantly, the voter must sign the provisional ballot envelope. If the signature is missing, then it’s considered unverifiable and the voter is sent a notice too.
But a large portion of those voters never actually respond to that notice. I heard from several Poll Workers at other precincts that many voters forgot to sign their provisional envelopes and neither the ballot clerk nor the provisional clerk were checking for signatures. It’s that easy.
In my poll training, the instructor told us that LA County, being the most populated county in the country, is unlike most counties in that they always count all of the provisional ballots. That made me feel better — until I read this statistic.
According to the Washington Post, 10–15% of provisional ballots are deemed invalid.
Vote By Mail was a Total Fiasco
California is home to a very confusing Vote By Mail (VBM) system. In an effort to alleviate crowds at the polls on election day, voters can sign up for VBM and receive a ballot in the mail. It’s filled out and mailed back or dropped off at designated county locations. Voters can also bring their VBM ballot to the polls on election day and surrender it for another ballot. Then they can vote right there and then.
BUT there’s a catch. If you don’t have your VBM ballot to surrender, then you’re pushed to a provisional ballot. Many people in my precinct were marked as VBM, but had no knowledge of signing up for the program. Many of these voters reported they never received their VBM ballot in the mail at all. This issue mostly affected the elderly, non-english speakers, and first time voters. This was the case in many other precincts as well.
A large portion of the VBM voters at my precinct who were forced to vote provisionally were also listed on the mysterious lavender supplemental sheets for newly registered voters. Poll Inspectors receive these supplements just hours before election day. I received two different lavender supplemental packages and the last one arrived less than 24 hours before polls opened.
Per county rules, Inspectors must mark each name on the lavender list with “VBM” on the official roster. So to break it down — if I simply hadn’t marked these names with “VBM,” many voters, including elderly people who’ve voted at the polls for decades, would’ve voted normally, instead of provisionally. It’s that simple.
In a Board of Supervisors meeting this week, LA County Registrar, Dean Logan, claimed the VBM issue was due largely in part to the format of the online voter registration page. Essentially blaming the voter for accidentally clicking an inconspicuous box for VBM sign up that’s listed alongside other questions like “Are you 18 years of age?” and “Are you a citizen of the United States?”
Even if that were the case, how do you explain the large portion of elderly voters who don’t use the internet at all? How did their registrations accidentally change to VBM after decades of voting in person at the same precinct? It doesn’t add up, Dean.
As for the actually counting, there’s another catch. The VBM ballots also had a time restriction which wasn’t clearly marked anywhere. VBM ballots needed to be received or dropped off by Friday, June 3rd in order to count toward election night tallies. But no one actually knew that. Before the election, Dean Logan promised that all ballots received by that date would be counted early and included in the initial tallies.
After the election, it’s a much different story. There are still hundreds of thousands of VBM ballots waiting to be counted, including my own. As of today and overall, there are 1,325,188 uncounted ballots in California.
(Check on your VBM ballot status: www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-status)
No Vetting or Oversight for Poll Inspectors
I’m a first time Poll Worker and Poll Inspector. The most disturbing part of my experience was the overall disorganization and gross lack of oversight, specifically in regards to training Poll Inspectors — the people in charge our right to vote.
Poll Inspectors are required to attend a three hour in-person training and complete a two hour online orientation. And for good reason. There are so many tiny things, nuanced procedures, and emergency scenarios to understand. But training is handled more like a suggestion than a requirement. There is no system in place to ensure that every Poll Inspector completes the in-person and online training. Meaning your right to a valid vote is based on the honor system.
Although I totally Leslie Knope-ed it and took a ton of notes, I heard terrible stories from fellow Poll Workers about Inspectors who were clueless and clearly didn’t complete the training. One even admitted to passing on the training because the job doesn’t pay enough. (He’s not wrong. I prepped off-and-on for two weeks and worked 18 hours on election day for something like $140.)
Another Poll Worker reported that their Inspector was brought in that morning without any training at all. A voter posted a video from a California precinct with clearly untrained clerks lacking the knowledge to find the supplemental roster pages — and disenfranchising hundreds of voters in the process.
Worse yet — there is literally no screening or vetting process for Poll Inspectors, besides a five minute call with a screener at the Registrar’s office. There’s even less oversight for Poll Clerks. Anyone off the street can be a Poll Worker. In fact, there’s a program in place for when a clerk doesn’t show up on election day. Inspectors can offer $80 to anyone who passes through the precinct to serve as a clerk. It’s just that easy.
One of my clerks backed out the day before the primary. I contacted a bunch of Facebook friends in a frenzy and it worked. Thankfully, I had four dedicated people volunteer for shifts throughout the day to cover for the clerk that dropped out. I can’t imagine running a precinct with less than five people. But some precincts did it with only two. That’s unacceptable.
Inspectors are given a bunch of loose papers, but no binder to promote organization. We’re given wordy and detailed booklets, but no highlighter to promote note-taking or due-diligence. If you want your Poll Inspectors to excel, why not provide them the necessary tools to do so? Why not track Poll Inspector’s attendance for training? If this all sounds like common sense to you, that’s because it is.
Poll training in LA County relies heavily on videos. The videos are out of date, almost to a laughable point. They’re low quality, both in picture and sound, making them difficult to watch and hear. This is yet another obstacle to deter Poll Workers from completing the training — even though we’re instructed to watch the series of videos three times.
Then there’s the issue of all the sensitive election materials sitting in sheds and basements. Everything you see at the polls on election day was previously in your Poll Inspectors’ possession for days and, in my case, weeks. Los Angeles has 4,698 precincts alone. So that’s 4,698 different Poll Inspectors, who have not been vetted properly, holding the key to our most basic right to vote. 4,698 opportunities for something to go wrong or to easily tamper.
Above the Poll Inspector is the Coordinator. They’re in charge of several precincts in one area. My Coordinator didn’t even get her assignment until 24 hours before polls opened. Although my Coordinator was experienced, nice, and appreciated my enthusiasm, she wasn’t willing to troubleshoot problems outside of my precinct.
When I asked her about a PBR issue at another precinct where a friend was working, she looked confused. “Why are you worrying about that? It’s not your problem,” she said. I responded, “I’m just trying to help.” She laughed. “You better watch your heart, girl.” I laughed too as she disappeared into the crowd and I never got an answer. All laughing aside, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a couple minutes of her time and an educated response to my question. She was a “Coordinator” after all.
Besides the Coordinator, Poll Inspectors are armed with nothing else but a hotline number, common sense, and training. If they’re lacking one of the latter, then they have to rely on the hotline number — where they’re fielding thousands of calls from thousands of precincts in LA. I had to call the hotline a few times. About half the time, I got a busy signal.
Poll Inspectors are in charge of the people’s right to vote. When there is a severe lack of oversight with hiring Inspectors, then there is no way to we can ensure that every vote is cast correctly and accurately. It’s undemocratic and unethical to place unskilled Poll Inspectors in charge of this important process.
How do we fix this broken system? We can start with the most basic step — vetting Poll Inspectors and ensuring that they complete mandatory orientations before they’re given the keys to an entire precinct of voters.
The Shady System of NPP and Crossover Ballots
California holds a semi-closed (or semi-open, depending on who you talk t0) primary, meaning only certain parties will allow Nonpartisan or NPP voters to participate in their primary. That is decided by the state parties. In this primary, NPP voters could participate in the Democratic, Libertarian, and American Independent races only. To do so, NPP voters must use a Crossover ballot for their preferred party.
In LA County, Poll Workers were instructed to ask every NPP voter if they’d like to use a Crossover ballot and the voter is given a colorful chart to help them decide. BUT here’s the thing — most people didn’t know what the hell that all meant and a lot of Poll Clerks forgot to even mention it. Many people passed on the Crossover Ballot and went for the regular NPP ballot.
What does that mean? An NPP voter can choose any booth with any party they want. They slip their ballot into the InkaVote reader and the first page is the Presidential race. They push their marker down and feel good about selecting their choice. But there’s yet another catch. It doesn’t count — because the parties decided that NPP voters can only participate by using a special, sort-of secret ballot.
So it looks like you’re voting for President — because it gives you the option to — without explicitly stating that the vote won’t count. This only effects Independent voters, who overwhelmingly supported Bernie Sanders in states with open primaries.
I was aware of this issue going into primary day and I thought it was pretty shady from the get-go. I was on it like a hawk and I had a couple amazing clerks who were on the same page. I’m proud to say that we only handed out ONE SINGLE NPP BALLOT at my precinct. We were diligent about informing every NPP voter who initially refused the Crossover ballot that their vote for President wouldn’t count. Every voter took a Democratic Crossover ballot once that was clear. But that’s only because we went out of our way to assist the voter in making an informed decision.
The lone NPP ballot went to a woman who was protesting the two party system, which I totally understand and was kind-of awesome. But other precincts weren’t as lucky. It makes me cringe to think about all the NPP voters whose Presidential vote didn’t count, but they think it did.
It goes deeper still. Election Justice USA reported that 75% of California VBM voters received NPP ballots in the mail, not Crossover ballots. So if that voter filled out the regular NPP ballot and sent it in, then their vote for President didn’t count and they’re none the wiser.
In their VBM package, the voters received incorrect and confusing information on how to get a Crossover ballot. In one example from Dean Logan’s office, the actual deadline to request a Crossover ballot was May 31, 2016, not March 18, 2016 as it appeared on that official mailer.
Even though Poll Inspectors in LA County were instructed to offer each NPP voter a Crossover ballot, other California counties actively instructed Poll Workers NOT to inform NPP voters about the Crossover ballot system. Santa Clara County instructed Clerks, in their official election guide, not to give out a Crossover Ballot if the voter didn’t specifically ask for it. One Poll Worker in Orange County reported that she was instructed during her in-person training to incorrectly push ALL NPP voters to provisional ballots.
Yes. My precinct had very few issues, largely in part to my over-preparedness. But my experience wasn’t the common one. For every precinct that ran smoothly, there are two that didn’t. And that’s being generous.
Every County Has Different Rules
Just to make things even more chaotic, every county in California possesses its own set of rules and procedures. They have different machines, different clerk roles, and even different laws.
I was in a very active Facebook chat with a bunch of other Poll Workers from all over California. We were trying our best to trouble shoot each others’ issues throughout election day and afterwards too. We figured that the rules were the same throughout the state. We were so wrong.
For example, some counties require the tally sheets to be printed from ballot machines after the polls close and hung that night outside of each precinct. Some counties instruct Poll Inspectors to do that. Some don’t. And some don’t even require the tallies to be hung at all. Or so that’s what we concluded after a very long and confusing online discussion about ballot box tallies. But I still don’t know for sure.
My Precinct Had One Single Democratic Ballot Left
It’s no secret that precincts ran out of ballots. At my precinct, the confusing Senate race caused so many voided ballots that we started to run low around 5:30pm. We needed more ballots and soon.
I called my Coordinator. But she didn’t answer. So I called the hotline several times until I finally got through. The Poll Section (aka the hotline rep) told me that many precincts were running out of ballots and that they’d get to mine as soon as they could.
But I never saw those ballots, at least not soon enough. As the hours passed, the line got longer and I got more worried. I called again, but the Poll Section couldn’t give me an ETA.
So I started bouncing around to every person I saw with a blue Democratic ballot to warn them about the ballot situation. I begged each voter to take special notice of the Senate race to avoid issuing extra ballots. I must’ve looked crazy, talking fast with big wide eyes. But it worked. At the end of the night — we had ONE DEMOCRATIC BALLOT LEFT. Just one.
My Coordinator did eventually show up with more ballots around 8:30pm, when the last voter was leaving.
Our System is Broken & We Have to Fix It
No matter what you call it, voter suppression is a real thing — whether it’s intentional or not. But the more time that goes by, the harder it is to believe the latter. A recent Harvard study ranked the US worst in western elections. Americans have a problem.
Our most basic right to vote is under siege. We can’t expect change to happen, if we can’t even ensure our votes are valid. We can’t help the victims of gun violence or hate crimes, if our votes for progressive candidates are voided. We need a complete overhaul. It all starts with a clear and transparent voting system — one that we don’t have right now — if we ever had it all.
This is my call to the all those responsible citizens out there — become a Poll Worker. Better yet, a Poll Inspector. Help us help ourselves. I was recently asked if I would do it all again. My response? Yes. I feel obligated to. Because if I don’t do it, who will?
I know that I helped over 500 people vote on primary day. I helped 71 provisional voters understand why it was happening to them and how to follow up on their provisional vote. I looked over their envelopes and made SURE that everything was filled out right. I made SURE that if they had any questions, I would do my best to answer them. I made SURE that my clerks went through each and every provisional ballot at the end of the night to find the missing names on the roster. I worked hard. I didn’t cut corners. It felt good.
I helped everybody that day, even people who weren’t voting for my candidate. But people nonetheless. Everyone deserves to vote and understand how to vote. EVERYONE. No matter what. No matter how much we disagree. That is our right as Americans.
I worked hard and voters took notice. I had around two dozen people thank me for caring. They told me I was doing a good job. People shook my hand, hugged me, and one woman even took a picture with me. Moral of the story? It’s not all bad. Real change only starts when we have competent people working the polls.
Bernie Sanders started a political revolution and it’s not ending any time soon. He brought and continues to bring millions of people to his progressive movement, and inspired thousands to run for office themselves. That means we need to be prepared at the polls when these progressive candidates come to the ticket. We can’t let ill-preparedness be our downfall. Not again.
If Dean Logan’s office can’t staff enough responsible Poll Workers, then we have to. We can do better than this.
Will you join me and register to be a Poll Worker in November?
LA County: www.lavote.net/home/voting-elections/pollworker-information
Other CA Counties: www.sos.ca.gov/elections/poll-worker-information
Did you experience difficulties voting in California? Add your testimony to this ongoing Google Doc.
www.goo.gl/forms/odntNtWInCkHWD4A3
Thanks for reading. The above account isn’t meant to discourage you, it’s meant to inspire! #workthepolls
