That is my official title for this upcoming election. A VIS is just below the Precinct Clerk at each location. I will deal with any issue a voter has and make sure they get to vote, either at the precinct I work at, or send them to the correct precinct. If there is any dispute with their right to vote, i.e. no form of any ID or a few other circumstances we will issue them a provisional ballot. All these are returned to the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) for review at the end of the day.
I attended a four hour training session today on general procedures and have a two hour session tomorrow for laptop training. The laptop's are issued to VIS's and contain a complete database of all voter registration information.
As I suspected, the majority of the people at training were much older than me. I noticed one woman who was younger than I was, otherwise I would think the median age was 60+
In the training we learned just about everything, including how to set-up and shut-down the voting machines. In Polk County we use the AccuVote OS system from Diebold. I feel these are superior to the Accu-Vote TS system which has received some bad reviews from election watchdog groups.
With the Accu-Vote OS all voting is done via a paper ballot which is marked with pencil and then scanned by the voting machine (just like a school standardized test).
To open a system in the morning two or more people must be present. There are procedures to check the machine for any old ballots or data. The memory card for the device is sealed with a serialized seal. Upon start-up a small printer prints a zero record. This printout is then signed by witnesses and sealed in the unit. Voting can now begin.
When a voter inserts their ballot it will automatically reject any overvote, but will not catch an undervote. A voter is informed of the overvote and has a choice, spoil their ballot and get a new one to vote again, or override it. Once a ballot is scanned it is dropped into the machine for removal at the end of the night. Any votes that feature a write-in candidate are stored in a separate bin inside the machine.
Provisional ballots are never scanned by the system, they are stored in a separate location and returned to the SOE.
Polls close at 7 pm. Any person in line at 7 pm will be allowed to vote, so in theory if we have a long line, the last vote could be cast at 8 pm.
There is a procedure for shutting down the Accu-Vote system. This once again is done by a team of people for witnessing purposes. One of the steps is to connect the Accu-Vote to a analog POTS line via an internal modem. The unit dials into via a direct connection to the SOE. At the SOE the GEMS system is used to collect and tally the votes.
A final printout of vote tallies is also produced by the Accu-Vote. One copy goes with the ballots, one goes with the Precinct Clerk and another is posted outside the polling place for public view. All ballots are removed from the ballot box and counted and sealed in a bag to return to the SOE.
There are a total of 180 registered election watchers who are allowed to monitor the voting during the day. The watchers work for the candidates or the parties. One intersting fact is that from 6 am till 7 am when the systems are being set-up and then after 7 pm when the polling location is closed any citizen can observe the process.
I'll post more about the laptop training tomorrow.
