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Here’s an update on the LaPorte County election. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were record numbers of mail-in voters in LaPorte County — roughly 6,900 votes.
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Democrats pushed hard to get voters to do mail-in voting nationally, so local Democrats believe that will impact the vote total in the county. This will likely impact some of the county races (auditor, treasurer, county council, etc.) since they are so close.
The Election Board is counting those votes now — with Republican and Democratic poll watchers. They will verify the signatures and then start the count. Once all the votes are tallied, they will release the final count to the public.
They do expect a final count today.
They do expect a final count today.
HT: @tony_oss (though I would feel comfortable enough to declare Jaime a winner...)
I was asked to be a poll watcher today for the LaPorte County Election Board. This is a fascinating process. At each table is a Republican and Democrat volunteer verifying signatures and making sure the paperwork for each mail-in ballot is in order.
Once all of the ballots are verified, they will then start processing the votes. There is a Republican and Democratic lawyer overseeing the ballot verification. With 6,800 votes left to count, there are still many ways this local election can end up.
The lawyers showed me a ballot that had a signature that didn't match their approved digital signature. The voter will be called and informed of what happened. That voter will now have eight days to rectify that signature at the courthouse.
Election Board Chairman Nelson Pichardo just rolled in the cart for the last of the mail-in ballots. There is still a lot of processing of ballots that need to happen. But, they're still confident to have a final tally before the end of the day.
To give local voters an update on who is overseeing today's vote count:
Nelson Pichardo - Election Board Chairman (Democrat)
Ralph Howes - Election Board fill-in (Republican)
Poll watchers: Sean Fitzpatrick, Allen Stevens, and myself.
Nelson Pichardo - Election Board Chairman (Democrat)
Ralph Howes - Election Board fill-in (Republican)
Poll watchers: Sean Fitzpatrick, Allen Stevens, and myself.
Update: They are still verifying votes but they have started the counting process as well.
Here is my poll watcher credentials. There’s not much to do as a poll watcher other than ... watch ... polls.
But, I’m on the varsity team now.
But, I’m on the varsity team now.
The ballots on the small left hand table are the last ones to still need verified. There are currently eight different tables doing the verifying right now. Processing ballots has also begun.
I was also just told again by Chairman Nelson Pichardo that they will have all these ballots tallied before the end of the day. #bepatient
Here is a picture of some of the ballots getting ready to be tallied. They will be put through the scantron machines on the back counter near the computers. A reminder that there are slightly over 7,000 votes to go through, so this process will take hours.
This team just ate lunch, and now they're back to verifying ballots. There are only a few piles left to be verified. It's important to note that these volunteers started this process yesterday morning and quit at 6 PM. It's taken two days to get through this pile.
When the volunteers verify a ballot, they check the signature, registration, and that they vote has been properly recorded as "received." A Republican and Democrat volunteer looks at each ballot.
Sometimes voters don't fill out their ballots properly (i.e., they X out a choice and write another one.) If this happens, the two Election Board members have to fill out a new scantron for that voter and verify that the choices are correct.
There's also the off-chance that a voter circled their choices on the option sheet and didn't fill out the scantron form. When this happens, the Election Board lawyers (R & D) fill out the scantron for that voter when the choice is uncontestable.
All that to say: Ralph Howes and Nelson Pichardo have been busy today. Though they are with different political parties, they work well together. Knowing both of them as I do and watching them work helps me trust our local election's integrity even more than I did before.
Working with a few dozen volunteers over two days means there are bound to be a few mistakes. Currently, the election lawyers are correcting wrongly marked precinct ballots. If the volunteers put "12" instead of "13", the entire ballot has to be redone by the attornies.
Update: they have now processed 17 of the mail-in ballot precincts.
Update: One more precinct left to count in LaPorte County. The results should be coming shortly.
Here are the official vote totals for the LaPorte County election, including mail-in ballots. https://www.scribd.com/document/482951558/2020-LaPorte-County-Election-Results
