I spent yesterday afternoon as an election recount observer. I was disappointed to find out today that the recount had been cancelled. However, being involved in the recount effort gave me a unique opportunity to view the election process.
Precincts that can’t be recounted
As has been widely reported, Michigan law has a provision preventing a precinct from being re-counted if there is a discrepancy between the number of ballots in the box and the number shown in the poll books, even if there is simply one less paper ballot than expected. This is counter-intuitive. Shouldn’t precincts with a discrepancy instead be closely examined, perhaps even by the professional, experienced and bi-artisan Board of Examiners?
This law is particularly horrifying to anyone who, like me, worked at a poll in a blue collar neighborhood on election day. By the time that poll opened, the line to obtain a ballot wound several times up and down a long hallway. People were standing in line — and waiting more than an hour just to get their ballots — dressed in their nursing, auto mechanics’ and postal delivery uniforms.
Once voters obtained and completed their ballots, there was still a long wait (40 minutes in the morning) to feed those ballots into the single scanner that served two precincts. The process was slowed down even further because the machine frequently rejected ballots, forcing the voter to make a second, or even a third, attempt.
That morning, another poll worker discovered an unmarked ballot someone had left in a voting booth. The poll worked duly noted it, which hopefully, kept those two precincts re-countable. However, had the poll worker not been trained in how to handle this unexpected situation, or had the non-voter simply pocketed the ballot and left with it, both precincts probably would have been declared uncountable in a recount effort.
There are, of course, many reasons a person might wait to get a ballot and then not vote — a fear of being late to work, illness or even just a need to use the bathroom after waiting in line. None of these reasons impacts the validity of the other votes, and none of them should prevent a recount.
These polling place problems impact blue collar neighborhoods, which typically lean more Democratic, much more than they impact more traditionally Republican areas. In my upper middle class neighborhood, I have never had more than a five minute wait to get a ballot, nor have I ever had to wait for the scanner that serves only my small precinct. I’ve never seen a scanner break or even spit back ballots as they do in poorer neighborhoods. These factors reduce the probability that a white collar employee will have to leave a poll without voting.
Also, based on my years of corporate employment, I suspect that even if white collar employees encountered a wait, most could simply text their bosses and say they were running late due to voting — an option not available to people who punch a time clock. I’ve also seen corporations bend over backward to allow their white collar employees to vote under the assumption most white collar employees will vote Republican. They make no such allowances for their blue collar employees. For these reasons, the no recount rule is far more likely to prevent recounts in Democratic areas.
Moreover, the rule might make it easy to hide vote tampering. I admit I don’t know how voting machines are programmed, but if, for example, a person tampered with how a scanner read votes, someone could keep the tampering from being discovered in a recount by programming the machine to ignore one vote. Or, a person could cover up voter fraud simply by obtaining a ballot and walking out with it.
The 85,000 Ballots with No Presidential Candidate Marked
Another issue that has garnered a great deal of media attention is the 80,000 — 90,000 (I’ve heard various estimates) Michigan ballots, a record number by all accounts, that contained votes for down ticket candidates, but didn’t include a vote for a presidential candidate.
What I noticed was that many of these ballots had, in fact, left the presidential box blank. Quite a few of them, however, voted Republican down the ticket, but both ignored the option of voting straight party Republican and left the presidential choice blank. Similarly, others ignored the straight party Democratic option and voted for Democratic candidates down the ticket. I didn’t keep track of how many fell into each category. Since I saw only a very small percentage of the total votes, my observations aren’t statistically significant anyway. However, if Trump believes he has the support of all Republicans, I would guess he is clearly mistaken.
Many of these “Presidentless” ballots, however, contained the name of a write in candidate. I wonder how many of the voters who cast these ballots realized that under Michigan law, votes for candidates who did not take steps to certify themselves as authorized write-in candidates are not counted. The scanning machines can’t read these names, and they are not even included in the recount effort. Most people who voted for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson probably knew that their candidate wouldn’t win, and that their vote was in some sense a protest vote. However, votes for third party candidates and certified write-in candidates are counted, so the people voting for them at least have made a political statement. Those candidates could actually, legally win, even if this outcome is unlikely.
At my table, piled in the uncountable “other” pile, along with the perennially popular write-in vote for Mickey Mouse, were a few write-in votes for Mitt Romney and John Kasich, as well as many votes for Bernie Sanders. None of these were counted. Even if Sanders had received more votes than any other candidate, he would not have been awarded Michigan’s Electoral Votes. There is no procedure for even determining how many votes he got.
Much has been said about how Democrats lost lost the election. I suspect that pollsters helped Democrats lose by so greatly favoring Clinton. It is easier to vote for Stein, Johnson or to write-in Bernie Sanders when you don’t think there is viable possibility of a Trump presidency. Clinton lost Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes — a fraction of the 85,000 in which no presidential candidate was selected. Maybe Democrats have to learn not to take polling results so seriously. Of course, it would might also help to explain to voters that votes for unauthorized write-in candidates are taken about as seriously as those for Daffy Duck.
The recount took place in large conference rooms throughout the state. Each conference room contained many tables and each table was staffed with two election officials and volunteer observers from the Stein, Clinton and Trump campaigns. If anyone wonders, a few observers from other tables told me their tables found a few more votes for Clinton than the official tallies showed, but, of course, we will now never know how many.
I can’t help but wonder why the Trump campaign tried so hard to defeat a recount. It seem a little disingenuous to argue that the recount was a waste of taxpayer money when, by the time the recount ended, many counties had completed their recounts and most other counties were well underway. I would guess that at this point, most of the money had been spent.
Michigan has a lot of problems with its election process. Sadly, we lost the opportunity to understand the process better when the recount was scrubbed. I doubt the Republican state legislature will have any interest in solving the problems that disproportionately affect Democratic areas, but we have to keep trying to bring attention to these problems and create a more fair system. We might also be well served by reminding people of the potentially dire consequences of casting a purely protest vote.