Comments on: Meet the new boss at Dominion, not like the old boss

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 13:46:08 +0000

IMO, one thing we can do with the technology which has appeared in the last thirty years is institute a bidding system for slots at each precinct.
==
Posit a county with 430,000 residents and 144 precincts. On each shift, you have two chief inspectors (one Republican, one Democratic) and a staff of regular inspectors. The number of inspectors will depend on the population of the precinct and the complexity of the election. Some elections may be complex enough that you have one desk where you sign in and receive a ballot pack for a particular set of offices and a separate desk where you get another pack for a different set of offices. Posit one, two, or three desks with a register at each. Posit two registers at each if you have a large anticipated volume of voters, perhaps one register with those with names beginning with A-I, another with names J-Z.
==
Your first shift runs from 5:30 pm to 10:00 pm on Friday, with a mini-shift for the chief inspectors on each end to obtain keys and other items from an assembly point to lock up and return the keys and certain other items to an assembly point. Furniture and other equipment kept in warehouses will have been delivered by that afternoon by contractors. The precinct staff set up for opening at 6:00 pm.
==
The second shift runs from about 6:45 am on Saturday (again, with an opening mini-shift for the chief inspectors) with polls opening at 7:00 am. and runs till noon. The third shift begins at noon and runs till about 5:00 pm. The last shift begins at about 4:45 and runs until 10:00 pm, with a mini-shift for the chief inspectors to lock up and return equipment to the assembly point. There may be mandatory overtime ordered by the county commissioners on this shift. This shift is the most consequential. Polls close at 6:00 pm, which means no further additions to the queue. It will take some time to clear the queue, after which tabulation begins. If you have two or three tabulation machines in each precinct, it should not take more than about 2.5 hours to completely tabulate all referenda and first-past-the-post contests and product the first round of any ranked-choice contest.
==
So, you have four regular shifts, you have 144 precincts, and you have about three poll inspectors on each side for each shift. Any aspirant poll inspector in the county can bid on any shift in any precinct in the county provided he be a registered Republican or a registered Democrat. For any shift, you submit a preference-ranked list of up to seven precincts in which you’d be willing to work and for each you indicate what you’d accept in payment for your labor. In re a particular shift, the scheduler looks at every precinct where someone has marked it their first choice. If on each side of the partisan divide the number marking the precinct as their first choice exceeds the number of slots, you award the slot(s) to the low bidder(s) unless such an award would have an aspirant poll inspector working back-to-back shifts at different precincts. (Anyone awarded a slot will be paid what they bid). In re any aspirant not awarded a slot in the first round, you look at their 2d choices and repeat the process. For those still not awarded a slot, you then look at their 3d choices, then the 4th & c &c until you’ve awarded as many slots as you can with this round of bidding. You then open up a 2d round of bidding to attempt to fill any empty slots. In this hypothetical county, you’ll have 3,500 scheduled slots to fill.
==
You also have to provide for contingent shifts, the purpose of which would be to execute recounts or to execute subsequent rounds of tabulation in ranked-choice contests. You might have three shifts on Sunday, three on Monday, and so forth. You award people their bid if the shift actually takes place and 20% of their bid if the shift does not take place.
==
The prevalence of meal delivery services nowadays should allow for meal orders which can be billed to the board of elections. Republicans in particular might benefit from securing shuttle services to transport their people two and from slum precincts. In your hypothetical metropolitan country of 144 precincts, about two dozen precincts are likely to have a security issue (and very few enrolled Republicans).

By: Tom Grey

Tom Grey — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 11:17:36 +0000

The main purpose of the voting machine should be to count the paper ballots Fed into it, and ensure that each paper ballot is counted correctly, then bundled for a later audit, if necessary. Like into 500 or 200 or 100 ballot bundles, with a time stamp and top line count. These bundles should be stored in a regular way, available for hand counting. Every 10th bundle or so should actually be hand counted, with a cessation of use of the machine if the verified hand count is different than the machine.

OTOH, mere paper ballots on election day is likely better, with perhaps a slightly higher cost to pay for precinct workers, only, to count the ballots.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 10:57:33 +0000

More seriously, I think the more important issue in today’s world is perhaps moving the voting day closer to the day of change in regime (aka 1/20/XX) so as to avoid or reduce the opportunities for lame duck executive and legislative actions when politicos have been voted out of office.
==
I would tend to disagree with you there. I would like the incoming administration to have a considerable bloc of time (approx 120 days) to assemble a suitable list of appointments for top-echelon positions. Posit that you swear in the new House of Representatives the first week of December, that will give newly elected members some time to assemble their senior staff and find temporary digs in Washington. If abuse of executive clemency concerns you, you could add a provision that the power to pardon and commute sentences (not to grant reprieves) is in abeyance during the period running from a presidential election and the end of a president’s term.
==
One thing I think might be agreeable would be to elect the U.S. House and the President in year one of a quadrennial cycle and elect the governors and state / territorial legislatures in year three. Then the state legislatures could then assemble and elect the U.S. Senate.
==
Another agreeable modification would be to allow the President to appoint up to a half-dozen VPs with each assigned to supervise a portfolio of departments and agencies. Should the presidency fall vacant, you can have someone drawn from a statutorily defined order-of-succession succeed to the office for a period of eight or nine months . The state and territorial legislatures could assemble about four months after the vacancy appears to elect a new President, who could be given a further four months or so to assemble an administration and could be sworn in at a time of his choosing at some point during that four month period. Should the vacancy occur in the last 18 months or so of an elected president’s term, you could just allow the successor designated by law to finish the term.

By: Marlene

Marlene — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 04:10:33 +0000

R2L: “… moving the voting day closer to the day of change in regime (aka 1/20/XX) so as to avoid or reduce the opportunities for lame duck executive and legislative actions when politicos have been voted out of office…. ”
Ohhh my yes! That’s become a horribly abused window! Nearly 10 weeks open for shenanigans, such as magic autopen abuse by a conscience-free administration.
We’ve seen that and more in spades.
That THAT type of archaic rule still exists … slays me.

By: R2L

R2L — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 03:41:12 +0000

On moving the voting day, yes we in FL do have hurricanes even in Nov., but as the wussy folks we are (or became by moving here) we still admire the hardiness of the folks living in “dreadful” winter climes. Maybe you should just leave that voting day decision alone so as not to reduce our views of your respective heroism in braving your inclement weather.

Clearly the presidential pardon has been abused by all sides while in lame duck status.
Other areas may be too attractive to the heritage regime to not take advantage of this last minute opportunity to damage the “other side”.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 22:44:09 +0000

The official who opens that envelope has sole authority to allow it, no one can believe some Leftists in a big city has anyone to verify they are doing their job 100%
==
In New York, the legwork is done by the staff of county boards of elections. These are patronage appointees. You have a Democratic commissioner nominated by the Democratic county chairman and a Republican commissioner nominated by the Republican county chairman. Half the staff reports to one, half to the other.
==
Ideally, you have a general screening examination the commissioners and all aspirants have to pass, the county chairmen appoint from the pool, and then the commissioners hire and retain whom they please from the pool. All consequential procedures are done jointly by teams of two inspectors.
==
Posit some old school procedures.
==
About half the population of the U.S. lives in counties with > 430,000 inhabitants and about half lives in those with fewer. In a county with 430,000 inhabitants, you might expect 15,000 postal ballots returned, or (given that they go in the mail in mid-September), just north of 400 per workday. You have the commissioners of elections inspect them in the presence of observers including the party sachems and a municipal court judge selected at random. You have a book of facsimile images for each precinct. That is this year’s register that a voter must sign when he appears at the precinct. All of those with a domicile in that precinct will be in the register, but those with a standing order for a postal ballot will be flagged. Teams of two sort the returned ballots by precinct into piles and retrieve the register for each pile. The commissioners or their vices have a stamp which marks their decision on each. You have the voters identifying information on the inner return mailer (which in turn contains the ballots in an envelope blank except for the precinct). Each commissioner compares the signature and stamps the register with his decision. The ballot passes if you get two approvals. Rejected returns are put in a locked bin with two locks – one for each commissioner. Approved ballots are then carted away for further processing. You have a clutch of locked cabinets, each with two locks. Posit there are a dozen each with a dozen pigeonholes therein and some additional space. For each ballot, the staff opens the mailer with the identifying information and places the envelope with the ballots in it (which has the precinct marked) in the appropriate pigeonhole. The return mailers with the identifying information are placed in a plastic envelope which is sealed, dated, and initialed by the two clerks. This envelope is then dumped in a receptacle kept in the open space in the cabinet. You might also have a printed checklist of all the voters from these dozen or so precincts who have a standing order for a postal ballot. You mark the date on each entry when their ballot was returned and each clerk initials it.

By: Skip

Skip — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 22:05:31 +0000

As a article at American Thinker points out
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/10/how_important_is_election_privacy_really.html
The official who opens that envelope has sole authority to allow it, no one can believe some Leftists in a big city has anyone to verify they are doing their job 100%

By: Marlene

Marlene — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 21:47:33 +0000

Art Deco, re. Your 7:14 am comments:
Yes … big yeses!
We have appallingly lazy & otherwise-motivated people in the way of making such commonsense changes.

By: Marlene

Marlene — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 21:29:18 +0000

Art Deco: “Maybe move everything back a month and have elections in April, July, and October.”
Yes, if only we could control hurricanes. It’s sad that they get such a long season to mess up.

By: Marlene

Marlene — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 21:21:06 +0000

Selfy: Bad winter weather has affected voter turnout, & yes of course that’s mostly in northern places.
The problem is, most every time possible for the major elections has its problems.
Earlier fall risks storms & hurricanes.
Summer: too many complain about interrupting travel.
Spring — of course spring break, and then “school finals”.
Still, maybe tax day would be better.
Lol.