After last month’s tie vote between two write-in candidates in the school board election, I made a Freedom of Information Act request to examine the “ballots” and the election roll.
On Monday, I visited the school to look at the material I had requested.
Ms. Martha Bascue, the District Clerk, let me examine all the records I had requested.
To begin, I looked at the paper rolls where the write-in votes were recorded. There were two voting machines the day of the election and in order to write-in a vote, a person needed to write the name on an area in front of them where the ballot was presented. When the lever was moved to open the curtain on the voting booth, the paper advanced and a new area was available for the next voter to write-in a name. The paper was stored in a roll which was opened at the end of the day when the polls closed.
The write-in votes appeared in random order with no discernible pattern to the votes.
From what I could determine, all the write-in votes were counted according to proper procedure. These were the “issues” that faced the district officials when tabulating the write-in ballots:
1.) There were two seats that write-in candidates were designated for. Some voters wrote in the name of one candidate for two seats. In a case like that, election law only allows one vote to be counted for that candidate. I independently verified this with an election lawyer for another school district. So if a voter wrote in the same name twice, that candidate only received one vote. That is the proper procedure.
2.) There were people who wrote in a name and then crossed it out and then wrote in another name. The name crossed out did not receive a vote. The final name written was tabulated for that candidate. There appeared to be one person who wrote in a name, crossed it out and did not write in anything else. The cross out was so darkened the original name could not be discerned and no vote was counted.
3.) There was one vote for a person who no one knew. That vote was counted for that person anyway and that person only received that one vote.
The roll of paper did have the names of the election officials who “started” the clean roll of paper at the beginning of the day and who opened the machine and removed the roll of paper at the end of the day.
I also asked to see a copy of the election roll of voters. The school district does not maintain a list of voters but instead keeps a numbered list with the names and addresses of everyone who voted. The first machine was used by 103 voters and the second machine was used by 116 voters. All of their names and addresses were recorded. If a person was not recognizable by the poll workers, that person was asked to provide identification. That procedure is allowable under the law.
At the end of the day, all elections, to be deemed fair, have to stand up to the scrutiny of independent observers. I recount the above and thank Ms. Bascue for spending the time with me and for meeting my FOIL request.