32 ms·

Many large counties in California report mail-in ballot results many days after election day, so they're definitely not scanning ballots as they're received. (I

Many large counties in California report mail-in ballot results many days after election day, so they're definitely not scanning ballots as they're received. (I live in Santa Clara, population 1.94 million.) You state many other things in your comment that are incorrect. For example, if I make an error on my mail-in ballot, I get a new one... just like the instructions say. That's never happened to me, because it's pretty straightforward to not spoil my ballot. And if the ballot is marked oddly, there is a paper trail, it's... the original ballot. As you're probably fully aware, some recounts look only at ballots that show overvoting or otherwise are judged less confident by the counting system, and more precise recounts look at all ballots. It's not that tricky, and it's certainly not completely suspect. My county uses the same system for in-person and mail-in votes.

specialist 8y ago
"Many large counties in California report mail-in ballot results many days after election day, so they're definitely not scanning ballots as they're received." I believe ballots in CA must be postmarked by election day to be counted. Whereas OR's rule is received by election day. So the Santa Clara number will be updated as more ballots arrive. But there is a count on election day. FWIW, IIRC, my jurisdiction's elections are certified, the final count with all the bookkeeping, two weeks after election day. Santa Clara will do something similar. "My county uses the same system for in-person and mail-in votes." That can't possibly be true. The ballot may look the same. But the handling, administration, bookkeeping, and tabulation is completely different. For a long while, jurisdictions did try to use the same mark sense devices at both poll sites and central count. But they way too slow to be practical for mail ballot processing. I'd be very surprised indeed if a county your size didn't use the newer high speed imaging scanners. "You state many other things in your comment that are incorrect." Each jurisdiction has it's own chaotic mutant rules. And it keeps changing. So no one person can know everything about all election administration in the USA. But your first "refutation" wasn't. Your last wasn't even wrong. And I don't have the heart to correct the rest. -- Update: I was curious what gear Santa Clara is using, when I spotted this: "Returned Vote by Mail Ballot Processing In accordance with California Elections Code, the ROV will begin to open, process and count returned Vote by Mail Ballot Envelopes approximately 11 days before Election Day. Vote by Mail processing will continue after Election Day until all ballots received prior to 8:00 pm on Election Day are processed." https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/observers/Pages/default.aspx https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/observers/Pages/defa... So I was wrong about the postmarks. I strongly encourage you to observe your elections. And attend the certification (canvas report) meetings. Seeing how the sausage is made will illuminate you. Santa Clara County's publicly available information is actually quite good. I spent years clawing information out of my county and didn't get anything nearly as detailed: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/VotingNovember2016/Documents/E107%20Canvass%20Procedure%20Manual%20for%20November%208%202016.pdf https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/VotingNovember2016/D... Oops. Santa Clara is still doing "ballot enhancement" and "ballot duplication". So now I believe it's likely they're still using the mark sense (opscan) devices for mail ballots. My county switched to image scanners over a decade ago, so I assumed everyone would have switched by now. My bad. But wait, then why does it take so long to get the final mail ballot tallies? I'd bet it's because "duplication" and "enhancement" are manual tasks, and they're manually feeding the mail ballots into the mark sense devices, which takes days. -- For the record, per your own county's documentation, the only thing I was wrong about is the lack of a paper trail (enhancement, duplication). Because your county hasn't upgraded to the ballot image scanners. Yet.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  > So now I believe it's likely they're still using the mark sense (opscan) devices for mail ballots. Why do you keep on referring to "mail ballots"? We use the same ballots for mail and in-person, as I clearly said before, you know, in the part that you said "That can't possibly be true" about? > And I don't have the heart to correct the rest. If your goal is to have a polite discussion, you're not getting there.
  - specialist 8y ago
    I just skim read your county's manual. It's pretty stock. Mail ballot processing is different from casting ballots at poll sites. What should I call a ballot that's cast via the mail? "Postal ballot"? "If your goal is to have a polite discussion, you're not getting there." And you could have researched how your county's election administration works before responding.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      You can stop being condescending already. I didn't say that mail ballot processing was the same. I said: "We use the same ballots for mail and in-person" The same machines are used to count them. So your comment "So now I believe it's likely they're still using the mark sense (opscan) devices for mail ballots." is odd because we use the same hardware to count in-person ballots that we use to count mail ballots, because they're the same physical ballots.
      - blergg 8y ago
        Every now and then, an anustastic conversation on HN comes my way, and I remember how fucking lame this place is. It’s not just lately. It’s pretty much always. People aren’t worth talking to here.
      - specialist 8y ago
        I had earlier tried to reply "You're right. I'll go for a walk", but got rate limited. -- How a cast ballot's votes are counted is just one part of ballot processing. To citizen's, marks on paper seems like a pretty straight forward thing. Like everyone else, I just marked my ballot and dropped it in the mail. Voila! How hard could it be? To the election admins, poll and mail ballots are very different things. Closest analog I can think of is "autonym". Citizens think about the "what" and the admins think about the "how". Poll ballots and mail ballots will never be comingled. Poll ballots will never be "enhanced" or "duplicated". Central count opscan machines are programmed differently. So they generate different reports. Which must be collated differently. Signature verification is done differently. There are many more failure modes with mail ballots. IIRC, my jurisdiction records 30+ different kinds of errors. Mail ballot processing is a sausage factory. You gotta see to believe it. But why am I telling you all this? I've had this same convo with 100s (1000s?) of people over the last 15 years. And I'm the conspiracy nut for daring to explain to people how their elections work.

specialist 8y ago

"Many large counties in California report mail-in ballot results many days after election day, so they're definitely not scanning ballots as they're received." I believe ballots in CA must be postmarked by election day to be counted. Whereas OR's rule is received by election day. So the Santa Clara number will be updated as more ballots arrive. But there is a count on election day. FWIW, IIRC, my jurisdiction's elections are certified, the final count with all the bookkeeping, two weeks after election day. Santa Clara will do something similar. "My county uses the same system for in-person and mail-in votes." That can't possibly be true. The ballot may look the same. But the handling, administration, bookkeeping, and tabulation is completely different. For a long while, jurisdictions did try to use the same mark sense devices at both poll sites and central count. But they way too slow to be practical for mail ballot processing. I'd be very surprised indeed if a county your size didn't use the newer high speed imaging scanners. "You state many other things in your comment that are incorrect." Each jurisdiction has it's own chaotic mutant rules. And it keeps changing. So no one person can know everything about all election administration in the USA. But your first "refutation" wasn't. Your last wasn't even wrong. And I don't have the heart to correct the rest. -- Update: I was curious what gear Santa Clara is using, when I spotted this: "Returned Vote by Mail Ballot Processing In accordance with California Elections Code, the ROV will begin to open, process and count returned Vote by Mail Ballot Envelopes approximately 11 days before Election Day. Vote by Mail processing will continue after Election Day until all ballots received prior to 8:00 pm on Election Day are processed." https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/observers/Pages/default.aspx https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/observers/Pages/defa... So I was wrong about the postmarks. I strongly encourage you to observe your elections. And attend the certification (canvas report) meetings. Seeing how the sausage is made will illuminate you. Santa Clara County's publicly available information is actually quite good. I spent years clawing information out of my county and didn't get anything nearly as detailed: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/VotingNovember2016/Documents/E107%20Canvass%20Procedure%20Manual%20for%20November%208%202016.pdf https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Voting/VotingNovember2016/D... Oops. Santa Clara is still doing "ballot enhancement" and "ballot duplication". So now I believe it's likely they're still using the mark sense (opscan) devices for mail ballots. My county switched to image scanners over a decade ago, so I assumed everyone would have switched by now. My bad. But wait, then why does it take so long to get the final mail ballot tallies? I'd bet it's because "duplication" and "enhancement" are manual tasks, and they're manually feeding the mail ballots into the mark sense devices, which takes days. -- For the record, per your own county's documentation, the only thing I was wrong about is the lack of a paper trail (enhancement, duplication). Because your county hasn't upgraded to the ballot image scanners. Yet.

greglindahl 8y ago
> So now I believe it's likely they're still using the mark sense (opscan) devices for mail ballots. Why do you keep on referring to "mail ballots"? We use the same ballots for mail and in-person, as I clearly said before, you know, in the part that you said "That can't possibly be true" about? > And I don't have the heart to correct the rest. If your goal is to have a polite discussion, you're not getting there.
- specialist 8y ago
  I just skim read your county's manual. It's pretty stock. Mail ballot processing is different from casting ballots at poll sites. What should I call a ballot that's cast via the mail? "Postal ballot"? "If your goal is to have a polite discussion, you're not getting there." And you could have researched how your county's election administration works before responding.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    You can stop being condescending already. I didn't say that mail ballot processing was the same. I said: "We use the same ballots for mail and in-person" The same machines are used to count them. So your comment "So now I believe it's likely they're still using the mark sense (opscan) devices for mail ballots." is odd because we use the same hardware to count in-person ballots that we use to count mail ballots, because they're the same physical ballots.
    - blergg 8y ago
      Every now and then, an anustastic conversation on HN comes my way, and I remember how fucking lame this place is. It’s not just lately. It’s pretty much always. People aren’t worth talking to here.
    - specialist 8y ago
      I had earlier tried to reply "You're right. I'll go for a walk", but got rate limited. -- How a cast ballot's votes are counted is just one part of ballot processing. To citizen's, marks on paper seems like a pretty straight forward thing. Like everyone else, I just marked my ballot and dropped it in the mail. Voila! How hard could it be? To the election admins, poll and mail ballots are very different things. Closest analog I can think of is "autonym". Citizens think about the "what" and the admins think about the "how". Poll ballots and mail ballots will never be comingled. Poll ballots will never be "enhanced" or "duplicated". Central count opscan machines are programmed differently. So they generate different reports. Which must be collated differently. Signature verification is done differently. There are many more failure modes with mail ballots. IIRC, my jurisdiction records 30+ different kinds of errors. Mail ballot processing is a sausage factory. You gotta see to believe it. But why am I telling you all this? I've had this same convo with 100s (1000s?) of people over the last 15 years. And I'm the conspiracy nut for daring to explain to people how their elections work.