let's keep track of ALL election problems - Obama's, Clinton's & I'll even say the GOPers. and let's be careful about making accusations till we have proof. we all know there are real problems with the election process and the whole system needs to be fixed.

some of the problems will be malicious & some from a dysfuntional, antiquated system.

the more balanced and documented we report it, the less likely people will be able to dismiss it as "sour grapes", hysteria, or partisan politics.

well done, anna.

I drove people to the polls on GE day in 2004. A lot of the people I met in SEFW said that TCDP did more harm than good, though I volunteered there about three days a week and didn't personally see any kind of problem.
I bet most of the people I knew are going for Hillary, but they still need to know if cr*p is going on in SE Fort Worth. Mark Veasey's office would probably be mighty interested too.
Best of luck, Anna!

that having good election judges is the best way to keep it honest.

Particularly provisional ballot and touch screen judges.

let me know and i'll correct/adjust as needed.

The election official I mentioned may have just been simply lazy for all I know.

But whether it's due to laziness or partisanship, trying to keep people from exercising their right to vote has no place in a democracy.

At UVA, we called it the "Football Usher Syndrome."  The ushers were usually older folks picking up a few bucks to police the aisles, and while they knew their marching orders, they typically had zero appreciation for broader objectives, like don't alienate people unnecessarily.  The same ushers worked Commencement, and the VP for Student Affairs used to have my wife and me freelance in the VIP area, to step in when the ushers were making poor decisions.  One year, I was told that Senator Byrd was in attendance to see a great-grandson graduate.  Sure enough, I spied an usher speaking heatedly with an incredibly dapper, diminutive, older gentleman.  I stepped in, and he asked me in the politest possible manner if there was any chance he and his relatives could move up into a large group of open seats.  I said, "Of course!"

So while that official in Maine could have been a Clinton supporter trying to game the system, my guess is he or she was simply hearing this internal voice growing ever louder, saying Must begin at 1!  Must begin at 1!.  Too loud to consider that enabling everyone to caucus just might be a tad more important than starting on time.

Often, "the sudden acquisition of a little authority" (emphasis on "little"), is accompanied by no real experience and very little training, and no mentors.

Novices will be very diligent in following every rule, until they come to an understanding of how things work, and which rules are the most important ones.  Is it more important to stop at the appointed time, or more important to allow everyone an opportunity to do what they are trying to do?  In an election, for example, it can be a little tricky.  You have to designate who was last in line at the time the poll closed, but close on time except for those who are waiting.  New election judges might not get that exactly right.  There may be similar concerns over voter registration deadlines.

In our precinct, it is always a scramble just to get a warm body to show up and work an election.  Often, the election judge and/or the pollworkers are novices.   They are swamped with materials and instructions, given a little video training, and left largely to their own devices. That's who is running our election.  Not a criminal mastermind.

The frequent suggestions of criminal intent do not match my experience, although it may be happening somewhere else.  What I see is confusion, inexperience, lack of adequate staffing, occasional shortage of equipment or supplies, equipment malfunctions, combined with voters who fail to get themselves registered at their correct address and who show up for voting at the wrong precincts because they assumed it would be where it was last time and did not check.  In other words, a typical day.  As Will Rogers put it, "I belong to no organized party.  I am a Democrat."

As far as there not being "much in their heads to begin with", I think that the process is more at fault than the person.  Quality assurance starts with and depends upon a repeatable process.   If a problem happens once, then it is the responsibility of those maintaining that process to determine the cause of the problem and change to process to prevent the recurrence.   It's always easy to point a finger at some individual later, and say it's all their fault.  But, why were there no checks and balances to ensure that one person's fault could not create a huge problem?