Working the Election

a local reminder about voters' rights

Four years ago, as I walked to my local precinct to vote, I took a picture of the path. My premonition was that the election would not turn out the way most polls were predicting, and I just wanted one peaceful snapshot before things started to change. The next day, I wrote a blog post on my election thoughts, using the title from a Bruce Springsteen song. I called the post, "A Really Long Walk Home."

This year, I had no such premonitions, and now that the results are in, and in light of the national direction over the past 46 months, I suppose I could have written a follow-up called, "An Even Longer Walk Home."

But my own vantage point has changed in way I couldn't have predicted in 2016. Last year our township clerk contacted me to ask if I might be interested in being an Election Inspector in the November 2019 election. Lori's been working elections for years, and eventually I said "yes." 

In March, I signed up again, and managed to get drafted to be a precinct co-chair. The township was losing co-chairs due to pandemic fears. The first Michigan COVID-19 cases were announced as we were auditing precinct results the evening of the election.

Tuesday was my third election as a co-chair. This post to the process of working the election, the changes in the local electoral landscape, and how that all played in to the reporting of results.

In 2018, Michigan voters passed Proposition 3, which called for "no-reason absentee voting." I had been a dedicated in-person voter, but I switched over to absentee for the August primary. In that election, the precinct I was working was within feet of the township's drop box, and all day I could see a steady stream of cars proceeding up to the drop box to drop off ballots.

During that August election, there was 40% total turnout in town, and 77% of those were via absentee. These were both much higher numbers than in previous primaries.

The two major parties have taken very different approaches to election preferences:

• Democrats have encouraged absentee voting; the perception is that higher overall turnout tends to help Democrats
• Republicans, or at least Donald Trump, have encouraged in-person voting, and have sometimes suggested that absentee voting is subject to fraud.

In Michigan, all absentee ballots must be received by election day, and many are received well in advance of election day. But the counting of absentee ballots cannot begin until election day. As a consequence of this, the in-person vote totals are routinely reported before absentee voting totals. The early counts will tilt more Republican based on the in-person voting, and then there will be the "blue shift" as the absentee ballots are tallied.

I worked Precinct 2 this year, housed in a local middle school along with another precinct. When we opened the polls at 7am, the line to vote stretched through the entirety of the school hall, back outside and halfway up the driveway. There was virtually no social distancing at first, though most people were wearing masks. The initial line was probably 90 minutes long. As the day wore on, though, the line dwindled, and by mid-afternoon the traffic had tapered off. Ultimately, 652 people voted in Precinct 2.

We encountered many routine issues during the day: People not sure which precinct they should vote in among the two at the school, was the most frequent. In a few cases, voters appeared not to know where they lived. That was troubling, but so long as their required identification checked out and they were properly registered to vote in the precinct, they were allowed to proceed.

31 voters had requested absentee ballots; they either needed to surrender their absentee ballot or sign an affidavit if they were not in possession of the absentee ballot. In either case, we needed to place a call to the clerk's office to have their absentee ballot "rejected," before we could issue a new ballot,  as there can never be a situation in which there are two live ballots for the same voter. In one case, the absentee ballot had already been voted; that voter was not allowed to proceed.

At 6pm, a local pizza place delivered 10 pizzas. They called it "pizza to the polls." This was a complete surprise, and we thank whoever paid for it.

Our final voter showed up at 7:56pm, and told us they had just completed a 13-hour drive from North Carolina to make it to the precinct before the polls closed. All of the poll workers applauded this final voter when they placed the ballot in the tabulator.

Official Voting Results in West Bloomfield Precinct 2, and West Bloomfield Township

We "ran the tape" and transmitted the results shortly after closing the polls. Our 652 in-person voters had voted 507 for Trump, and 135 for Biden. Most of the votes were straight-party votes. Eight voters had selected different candidates, one had voted a write-in, and the other did not mark a valid vote for President. As we had no certified write-in candidates, the write-in vote was recorded but rejected.

West Bloomfield has 25 precincts. Joe Biden won 22 of those precincts. Precinct 2, where I had worked, was among the 3 precincts won by Donald Trump. 

Overall voter turnout in the township was 78.48%, as compared to 75.56% in the 2016 general election. However, as the number of registered voters also increased, the number of votes increased by 5,654, or 14.6%.

Here is where we see the "blue shift":

• Donald Trump won the in-person vote in all 25 precincts.
• Joe Biden won the absentee vote in all 25 precincts
• In every precinct, the swing between in-person and absentee margins was at least 53 percentage points. In one case, in was more than 90 points -- Trump winning by 36 points in person; Biden winning by 55 points absentee.
• about 75% of our votes were absentee.
• At 9pm, West Bloomfield showed as Trump winning the town by 3,670 votes, and a percentage of 66% to 33%
• When the absentee vote tabulation completed overnight, Biden had won West Bloomfield by 8,757 votes, and an overall percentage of 59% to 40%. 
• The blue shift in West Bloomfield was 12,427 votes, out of 56,626 registered voters.
• Biden captured more than 68% of the absentee votes.

There is a clear perception gap in states like Michigan, where the "blue shift" is real and pronounced. Donald Trump even tried to claim victory in Michigan based at least in part on the idea that his early lead in the count was something more than a mirage. One obvious remedy would be to update Michigan laws to allow absentee vote counting to commence earlier.