Observer,
I observed for a short period of time. The room was set up as if they didn’t want or expect people to show up. Very little room to observe. Would have been nice to have some seating to make you feel like you were only intruding. I was told to stand back and not to communicate. Heard of one instance where an absentee ballot’s name did not match the envelope’s name. There were mostly older people running the tables. They were getting things done, but it seems as if they should have been taking it more seriously. I do know there were shift changes due to seeing one person out of the recount room elsewhere in the town it took place soon after a chunk of people left or started to.
Overall, seems like the place checked off okay. Only big complaint was the whole setup of the room making it hard to observe. Especially in back being they told us not to go behind any tables or get too close. I am wondering about that absentee ballot without the name match though. It was in a small township, where a few votes could really make a difference for that area.
You were also required to sign in with your full name and address aswell as a slot for party affiliation.
Same deal with the name tag.
Frank
DEC 05, 2016Nothing Significant happened. Columbia County has now completed their recount. They did not have the total tally of the changes when I checked with the Democrat on the Board of Canvasser’s but it has not been very many. Looks like the voting counts on election night in Columbia County did not change very much. It has been a good learning experience these last three days as an Observer.
Colin
DEC 03, 2016Well marked. Very nice greeter, however we were told to sort of back off and not go behind tables etc. We were also told not to talk to them at all and had to sign in with your name address and party as well as wearing a name tag. They did allow photos. The setup was somewhat hard to manuver with a group of people following people to each table. — Heard that one absentee vote from a small township’s envelope’s name didn’t match the name for the ballot.
Collin #2
Here are some photos from my recent approved observer report.
Frank
Karen Turnure and I were observers from 2:30 PM until 7:00 PM on Friday Dec 2. The time was mostly uneventful. The only major problem was in the Village of Pardeville when as I understood it, they found that 42 of the 126 absentee ballots did not contain initials but they had 126 Witnessed envelopes to correspond to the 126 ballots and everything else was in order and so in me discussing this with the Democrat member of the Board, she explained that her and the other members of the Board of Canvassers had accepted the ballots as good.
I do not know which candidates were voted for on the ballots. Everything seemed to be going OK with the overall recount and they were not going to be working on Sat and would start again on Monday and maybe would finish on Monday as they only had to finish up with Columbus that had already been started today and then do Portage, Lodi and Wi Dells which I understood would finish the Columbia County Recount.
Frank
DEC 02, 2016Attended the Columbia Cty recount as an Observer today from 9 AM to 3 PM. along with Karen and Frank Turnure. Everything appeared to be going OK. No big changes on counts. They thought that the total recount in Columbia Cty may be finished by the end of Monday or Tuesday as it was going fast today. We suggested that they provide us with a small table and chairs so we would have somewhere to write etc without sitting on the floor.