MEAC wrong


MEAC Home What has gone wrong in past elections? The Resolution Accessibility Problems What are national organizations saying? League of Women Voters Statement	What Has Gone Wrong? What Do We need to Improve? In 2000, some voters had to wait over 2 hours to vote. One cause identified was running out of registration cards, which is inexcusable, since extra ones can be used at the next election. There were not enough pollworkers. See the article from the Wisconsin State Journal. Mike Verveer talks about how he recruited people off the street to help at the polls. Joe Parisi, the County Clerk at the time, indicated that Madison should have been better prepared. In 2004, we hired enough pollworkers, but we neglected to give them any training. Since it was the first time we had fully staffed polls, we probably hired hundreds of workers who had never worked the polls before and gave them no training. All they were told was to arrive at 6:15 and follow what the chief inspector said. This is not fair to the workers to put them into that kind of an election without training; and its not fair to the chief inspectors to set up the pooling place, train the workers, and deal with the early morning rush. With better training, we could avoid problems handling absentee ballots. For the November 2004 election, Madison's plans for the number of ballots was well short of the number recommended by the staff of the State Elections Board (SEB) was recommending. This letter has the details. Just before the election it was announced that more ballots would be printed. In 2006, the school board race was very close and a recount was requested. The recount procedure used included a violation of a key law and a violation of logic. (On the second day of the recount the procedure was changed at the request of one of the candidates.) We must improve our polling places. The lobby of the Doyle Administration Building is extremely small. There is not enough space for everybody – lawyers, observers, and election protection people. It’s not enough space to efficiently handle the number of voters there. In 2004, this ward had the second largest turnout of any single-ward polling place in the state. See the details. On the west side, Madison has grown past the beltline. Presumably those folks have garbage pickup, police and fire protection, but they don’t have a polling place. As result, the polling place at High Point Church is overwhelmed. They had 3972 voters in November 2004. This is an outlier by a significant margin. The pollworkers said they were there until 1:30 handling absentee ballots and all the paperwork, and then they had to make the long trip downtown with the materials and back home again. This makes for a 19-hour day. If this were divided up into 2 locations, both would be larger than the average-size polling place, which in Madison are about 1700. The figures being used here are the number of people who voted for president in 2004. A similar situation exists in the southwest corner of the city. On the east side, a similar situation is developing. The numbers of voters are not as large yet, but it is only a matter of time. See also the page on Madison’s accessibility problems. Please post your comments or questions at the Voting Rights Wisconsin blog. Fair Elections Wisconsin supports the formation of a Madison Election Advisory Committee. Fair Elections Wisconsin is an independent all-volunteer organization working for elections that are accurate, well administered, and transparent. This series of web pages is written by Paul Malischke. May 29, 2006

What Has Gone Wrong? What Do We need to Improve?

In 2000, some voters had to wait over 2 hours to vote. One cause identified was running out of registration cards, which is inexcusable, since extra ones can be used at the next election. There were not enough pollworkers. See the article from the Wisconsin State Journal. Mike Verveer talks about how he recruited people off the street to help at the polls. Joe Parisi, the County Clerk at the time, indicated that Madison should have been better prepared.

In 2004, we hired enough pollworkers, but we neglected to give them any training. Since it was the first time we had fully staffed polls, we probably hired hundreds of workers who had never worked the polls before and gave them no training. All they were told was to arrive at 6:15 and follow what the chief inspector said. This is not fair to the workers to put them into that kind of an election without training; and its not fair to the chief inspectors to set up the pooling place, train the workers, and deal with the early morning rush. With better training, we could avoid problems handling absentee ballots.

For the November 2004 election, Madison's plans for the number of ballots was well short of the number recommended by the staff of the State Elections Board (SEB) was recommending. This letter has the details. Just before the election it was announced that more ballots would be printed.

In 2006, the school board race was very close and a recount was requested. The recount procedure used included a violation of a key law and a violation of logic. (On the second day of the recount the procedure was changed at the request of one of the candidates.)

We must improve our polling places. The lobby of the Doyle Administration Building is extremely small. There is not enough space for everybody – lawyers, observers, and election protection people. It’s not enough space to efficiently handle the number of voters there. In 2004, this ward had the second largest turnout of any single-ward polling place in the state. See the details.

On the west side, Madison has grown past the beltline. Presumably those folks have garbage pickup, police and fire protection, but they don’t have a polling place. As result, the polling place at High Point Church is overwhelmed. They had 3972 voters in November 2004. This is an outlier by a significant margin. The pollworkers said they were there until 1:30 handling absentee ballots and all the paperwork, and then they had to make the long trip downtown with the materials and back home again. This makes for a 19-hour day. If this were divided up into 2 locations, both would be larger than the average-size polling place, which in Madison are about 1700. The figures being used here are the number of people who voted for president in 2004.

A similar situation exists in the southwest corner of the city. On the east side, a similar situation is developing. The numbers of voters are not as large yet, but it is only a matter of time.

See also the page on Madison’s accessibility problems.

Please post your comments or questions at the Voting Rights Wisconsin blog.

Fair Elections Wisconsin supports the formation of a Madison Election Advisory Committee. Fair Elections Wisconsin is an independent all-volunteer organization working for elections that are accurate, well administered, and transparent.

This series of web pages is written by Paul Malischke. May 29, 2006