By John Estridge
For Franklin County Clerk Neysa Raible and her first deputy Ruth Rowlett, the 2020 Franklin County Primary Election was their third election since Raible took office Jan. 28, 2017.
To say the election was difficult and unusual is downplaying the situation. There is an ongoing world-wide pandemic, the primary was delayed due to the statewide Stay-at-Home Order, it was not known if there was going to be in-person voting until April 17, there were new voting machines in service and the vast majority of election workers were very new to the situation. For a large majority of those working at the 13 polling stations, this was their baptism by fire.
And the election results were finished in what is thought by many to be in a record time that goes back to the county’s beginning more than 200 years ago.
The results from the last precinct were posted at 7:16 p.m., exactly 76 minutes after the polls closed at 6 p.m., Tuesday, June 2. The first poll site to report was in at 6:20, 20 minutes after the polls closed, Raible said.
“It was almost scary that it went so well, because we expected it to be chaotic,” Raible said. “We feel very blessed that it did run very smooth.”
Pandemic and Stay-at-Home Order
Even before the pandemic, the 2020 election was deemed to be troublesome by those having to oversee the election. That is because of the impending presidential race and the alleged difficulties and influences that occurred with the 2016 presidential election.
Throw in the pandemic, new equipment and new employees, and this election was more than a handful.
On March 11 of this year, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. That was followed by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb issuing a Stay-at-Home Order that took effect at 11:59 p.m., March 23.
Just before and immediately after the Stay-at-Home Order much in America came to a halt including a large majority of county government. When possible, county employees worked from home and the public was not allowed in the buildings. Much of that was not possible at the clerk’s office because of the nature of the office. It is the keeper of the Franklin Circuit Courts’ records. And it runs the county and the municipal elections within the county.
Due to those duties, many of the records and the work have to remain within the office and cannot be done from home, Raible said.
While the work of the circuit courts was slowed, there still remained initial hearings, emergency hearings and other items, which generated records such as motions and orders for the clerk’s office to record, distribute and keep.
With the election, the office had to continue to slog on even though much of how and when the election would eventually be held was in limbo.
“We did normal court things which were still going,” Raible said. “If we were a little slow, we had lots of the election (business to work on.)”
Absentee ballots
Raible said the impetus for the exponential increase in the number of mail-in absentee ballots came from the nature of the pandemic: Many people did not want to take part in the usual in-person voting process at the polling places on June 2. Instead, a large number of local voters chose to vote by mail.
According to Raible, during the 2016 presidential election, 208 absentee mail-in ballots were requested. For this election, the number expanded to 1,407, roughly a little less than a 700 percent increase. Absentee mail-in ballots started going out to the county’s voters who requested them on March 23.
She explained the absentee mail-in voting process.
A registered voter contacts the clerk’s office and requests an absentee mail-in ballot. The clerk’s office then sends an application to the registered voter. The person fills out the application and returns it to the clerk’s office in a self-addressed-stamped envelope.
Signatures from the voter are compared to what is on file in the clerk’s office before the ballot is sent out to that registered voter.
Then, the clerk’s office sends out the ballot to the voter. In turn, the voter completes the ballot and returns the ballot to the clerk’s office in another self-addressed-stamped envelope.
When the clerk’s office receives the completed ballot, the signature on the envelope’s exterior is again compared to the one on file. Those two documents are attached together and placed in a secure, locked box until election day.
During this election, the election board members were allowed to process the votes after the polls opened at 6 a.m. In prior elections, the process took place after noon.
An election board is made up of a registered Democrat, a registered Republican and the clerk. The election board members compare the signatures again on election-day morning after the locked, secure box is opened. They then separate the unopened ballot from the signature document so the vote will remain anonymous and confidential. The ballots are then processed through a card reader after the day’s mail run.
Results of the absentee votes were kept confidential by the voting machine technician who works the election with the clerk’s office. When the precincts come in after the polls close, then all the votes are tabulated together.
New voting machines
This is the first election in the county where the MicroVote voting machines were utilized.
According to Raible, the electronic machines look like touch-screen voting machines but utilize buttons along the sides of the screen.
“They are very simple,” Raible said. “You push the button for the candidate you want. If you make a mistake, you just press that button and it will uncheck him or her.”
A button allows the voter to progress a page. If a voter is unsure of what he or she voted, they can go to a previous page and examine it. After inspecting all the choices made, making sure they are correct, the voter hits the button next to the word “submit.” And then hits a big red button, which lights up after the submit button is engaged, to cast one’s vote.
There is a verifiable paper trail for the voting choices, which allows for a recount if a recount is needed, Raible said. This is called VVPAT which stands for verified voting paper audit trail. According to verfiedvoting.org, “the very prerequisite to accuracy, integrity and security in today’s voting technology is that there be a voter-marked paper ballot, or at least a voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT), for every vote cast. This ensures that election officials will have something they can use to confirm whether or not the electronic tallies produced by the voting system accurately reflected the intention of the voters.”
In prior elections, ballots had to be made up for specific precincts and any ballots left over were thrown away, costing the county about $8,000. However, with the new machines, ballots are no longer necessary. If people want ballots, they need to vote using the absentee mail-in process, Raible said.
New poll workers
Once the pandemic was declared, it became obvious to Raible she was going to have to find new poll workers.
“I started out calling all the inspectors who had worked in the past and asked them if they felt comfortable working,” Raible said. “A lot of them were hesitant.”
Some of the children of the former workers made it clear they did not want their parents working at the polls due to the dangers from the pandemic.
Thus, Raible contacted Franklin County High School and asked employees there to send her contact information on juniors and seniors who the employees felt were responsible and mature. Raible also knew of some college students who were home due to colleges closing and many were also out of work due to the pandemic.
Many counties consolidated polling places because of the paucity of poll workers. However, Raible decided against that and went with the usual 13 polling locations, because she said that would make it easier for voters and poll workers to do the necessary social distancing. Each polling location has a minimum of five workers: an inspector, two judges and two clerks. She put more workers at the historically busier polling locations.
Using those methods, Raible came up with 22 high school students and 14 college students. Of the 79 poll workers, 53 were doing it for the first time.
Training was problematic because of crowd restrictions due to the state pandemic regulations, Raible said. Thus, she set up five training sessions where the workers learned their duties and the operation of the new voting equipment. She also supplied written voting information for the workers to read.
All the poll workers understood the importance of their jobs, Raible said.
“They really knew that it was important because we stressed how important it was,” Raible said. “They took it very seriously. They were very good about what we told them they needed to do; they really tried to do their best. It gave them such a great experience. You have people come in and they’re glad to see the younger generation step up. Even when someone would compliment us on how well they did, it would just grip your heart. They are tomorrow. We’re just working today.”
Many of the new workers did things without being told. Raible said as one inspector ran the tapes after the polls closed, the young people were right behind her dismantling the machines. They did not have to wait and be told what to do.
Poll workers were provided personal protective equipment (PPE); however, while it was recommended the workers wear masks and gloves, they could not be made to wear the PPE. Containers of hand sanitizer were prevalent. Voting machines were sanitized after every use and both workers and voters abided by social distancing requirements. Even going through the repetitive sanitation procedures, there were few, if any, lines at the polling places, Raible said.
Courthouse changes
When the results were brought to the courthouse for tabulation, it was a changed environment there also.
In preceding elections, the poll workers brought the equipment and votes to the door to Raible and Rowlett’s office. The clerk’s office has three doors: one for the criminal side, one for the civil side and the one in the middle for access to Raible and Rowlett’s office.
A large screen is set up outside the civil doorway and incoming results are projected on the screen. Many people congregate on the other side of the hallway away from the large screen to watch the results and visit. Inside the civil side’s office, baskets are put out on the long counter for media and the parties where hard-copy results are placed in order for those entities to have easy access to hard copies of the results.
None of that could take place this year with social distancing.
Instead, tables were set up near the backdoor as it was the first stop for the poll workers bringing in the votes and equipment.
At the first table, people collected the forms the poll workers had to fill out. Around the corner were other tables. At those tables, provisional bags and equipment were turned in. Some college students helped carry equipment. A clerk’s office employee took over the tally card and took it to the MicroVote employee who tabulated the vote inside the clerk’s office.
Instead of being inside the courthouse watching the results on a big screen, candidates, their families, friends and other interested people waited out on Court Street and were handed hard copies of the updated results. Another blessing was the good weather for election day, Raible said.
It was all over in less than an hour from the first polling station reporting to the final results being posted.
It would be nice if the clerk’s office could take a breather at this point, but the general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Both parties have a chance to hold caucuses, sometimes called conventions, to fill out the ballots where no one ran for that party in the primary. Raible said they have until July 6. Also, school board candidates will be part of the general election.
Raible and Rowlett are going to plan as if the social distancing rules and pandemic concerns will still be here for the general election, but they will hope the pandemic will be historical by that point in time. Already, they have the envelopes ready for mail-in absentee voting. The only thing the envelopes lack is the official ballots. That will come later.
Whatever they are faced with, Raible is optimistic because of the good people working the election.
“Our office is awesome,” Raible said. “They’re just great. They do whatever needs to be done. The poll workers dealt with things well. Everyone did a great job. It’s all because of them that we were successful.”