#electionofficer — Public Fediverse posts

So Virginia has a special election on April 21 because we have a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Any of you who have seen my #electionofficer posts know that I'll live post throughout the day. I just got my assignment.

Back in January, I was at a library where I called it "election officer on hard mode." Every possible edge case came through at least once. And 33% of people who walked in the door were turned away because they thought they could vote there, but they couldn't.¹

I'm back at that precinct in April. Expect more craziness from me on Tuesday April 21.

¹ if this sounds bad, it isn't, I'll explain in a reply to this post.

Hey, #Kentucky - want to help run #elections in your county? Sign up to be a poll worker! Fill out the form linked below; your County Clerk will be notifed that you're available, and they'll contact you if you're needed. #pollworker #electionofficer

https://bit.ly/3Q3rkzY

Hey, #Kentucky - want to help run #elections in your county? Sign up to be a poll worker! Fill out the form linked below; your County Clerk will be notifed that you're available, and they'll contact you if you're needed. #pollworker #electionofficer

https://bit.ly/3Q3rkzY

Hey, #Kentucky - want to help run #elections in your county? Sign up to be a poll worker! Fill out the form linked below; your County Clerk will be notifed that you're available, and they'll contact you if you're needed. #pollworker #electionofficer

https://bit.ly/3Q3rkzY

Hey, #Kentucky - want to help run #elections in your county? Sign up to be a poll worker! Fill out the form linked below; your County Clerk will be notifed that you're available, and they'll contact you if you're needed. #pollworker #electionofficer

https://bit.ly/3Q3rkzY

Hey, #Kentucky - want to help run #elections in your county? Sign up to be a poll worker! Fill out the form linked below; your County Clerk will be notifed that you're available, and they'll contact you if you're needed. #pollworker #electionofficer

https://bit.ly/3Q3rkzY

I thought I was done with this #electionofficer thread because the #elections were Tuesday. But not quite.

I found out today that my collector officers were the very first out of all 19 precincts to turn in their results. They got cheers from the staff when they arrived. There aren’t a lot of trophies or bragging rights in elections, but getting stuff turned in fast and accurate is something to be proud of.

Nobody had to do the “walk of shame” on Wednesday, and we were really fast getting out.

What is the walk of shame? We have umpteen different forms that have to be signed. Some by any 2 officers, some by all officers, some by the chief, etc. Overnight, the County officials check all the paperwork for all the required signatures. If any are missing, they call the various officers and make them come in on Wednesday and sign what they missed. I’ve had to do that once. So you’re in line with a bunch of other officers and you all know why you’re all there. 😜

So we got out fast and had no errors. That makes me feel good.

This thread is getting a little attention so I thought I would add one more #electionofficer opinion. This is my personal opinion and I speak for no one but me.

Fairfax County #elections are secure.

The election hacking happens every day EXCEPT #electionday. Otherwise well-intentioned people are persuaded to vote for republican troglodytes. Then we very securely use a trustworthy mechanism to correctly and accurately record those votes.

We have so many checks, double checks, 2-person reviews, double-entry book keeping, etc. It is just impossible in my mind to alter an election result with foul play. Every precinct is gonna have one or two irregularities. But those are along the lines of maybe we checked in the wrong voter (checking in Arturo Sanchez Jr, when it was Arturo Sanchez Sr who came in).

It is super unlikely that someone who is totally ineligible to vote wanders in, gives their name, shows some ID (or solemnly swears they are themselves) and votes. Even if one or two got by (which I highly doubt) you wouldn’t get one in every precinct. You couldn’t do it at a scale that could change a result.

So my opinion is that people should look elsewhere to influence elections. Get out the vote, fight disinformation, build community, etc. But don’t spend time on conspiracy theories about space lasers hacking voting machines or some such shit.

@blogdiva Volunteer isn’t exactly the right word. I’m paid $350 for this day. I did have to take the day off work (which pays more than $350), and I have to take a bit of time off work to do some mandatory trainings (like 4-6 hours a year). But I do take the money.

As a chief #electionofficer I have to pick up supplies on Monday, lead the precinct setup that afternoon, and drive a bunch of stuff to the government center after the election. Hence the extra money.

Assistant chiefs get $300, because they do more training and more work than officers, but don’t have the extra errand running that chiefs do.

Regular officers get $250. They optional help set up on Monday, shown up at 5:00am on Tuesday, and go home afterwards. Minimal training.

Electing a democratic governor got me a $50 raise for the next few elections. 😜 (chief is always the same party as the sitting governor: some weird Virginia election law)

My crew was great this time. Everyone was experienced. Nobody wondered what to do. It’s really one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with. I just asked them to do stuff and the next thing I know, it was done.

Virginia has a strange rule that the chief in the precinct has to be the same party as the sitting governor. So for the last 4 years, I was always assistant chief. For the next 4 I will always be chief. I’m fine with that.

I suspect they picked experienced people for this one because we did it with minimal prep and a small crew. As far as I’m concerned, it worked out great.

I’m tired. Goodnight all. I hope you enjoyed reading about #elections from an #electionofficer point of view.

12/fin

Closing has 3 phases:

1. Get the USB drives out of the ballot scanners, the absentee ballots, and any provisional ballots. We have these “collector officers” who leave as soon as that’s ready and drive them straight to the government center. I got my COs out at 7:20. 20 minutes after polls close. That is good. We aim for 7:30.
2. Results and numbers. We count ballots, check-ins, etc so I can do final paperwork. I started doing paperwork at 7:40. That’s really good. With my COs gone, there were only 4 of us to do everything that was left.
3. Miscellany and clean up. Packing boxes, putting equipment away, taking down signs. We left at 8:20. Again, really good for just 4 people. Some teams are faster. 8:00 is an excellent score. But I’m happy with 8:20 and I don’t think my officers will complain.

11/
#elections #electionofficer

Fina couple #electionofficer posts for today. We had about 270 in-person voters in a precinct of about 2500. Add to that I think 100 absentee and early voters and this precinct had a participation rate of about 15%.

The vote total was about 170 D to 100 R. So the democrat took it handily.

Very few unusual scenarios. Last special election, in October, was election on hard mode. My precinct at the time (Centreville Public Library) hit like 19 out of 23 “what if”s. Today we did the inverse: 4 of them.

10/
#elections

So we have been visited by 2 different members of the board of elections. One member and the chair. With only 19 precincts in a compact district, they can do that. Chair Hanley was impressive. Former Secretary of the Commonwealth, former chair of the Board of Supervisors in Fairfax. And nice. Apparently she is 82 years old. I wish I could be as active, bright, and engaged at 82.

Having said that, we should have mandatory retirement ages and term limits on most elected positions. Since it is clear that some generations won’t willingly give up power, we kinda need to force it.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/elections/electoral-board-members-0

9/
#elections #electionofficer

I think the schools save money by not running much heat over the weekend. Then yesterday was also a holiday. And it’s been really cold here the last few days. The upshot of all this is that this wing of the school is COLD. Of the 6 officers here today 4 are wearing coats and/or hats. And there’s a bit of work we have to do outside (signage and such at the beginning and end of the day), which is super cold.

We have spoken to the school staff. They’re doing what they can.

Maybe we will pile up some ballots in the center of the room and make a campfire to warm ourselves up. 😜

8/
#electionofficer #elections

My assistant chief is experienced, which is great. But he’s dozing in his chair. It’s quiet enough that that’s fine.
7/
#elections #electionofficer

Another thing that is unusual is the tiny scope of the election, plus the number of special #elections. Sometimes people receive an absentee ballot in the mail, then they decide they want to come in and #vote in person.

That’s fine, we deal with it all the time. It’s easy as long as we get their blank absentee ballot from them. But today, even if they show up with their absentee ballot, I have an extra check to do. I need to make sure they’re giving up an absentee ballot for THIS election in THIS precinct. Typically you don’t worry about that.

A woman come in with her absentee ballot and it was still sealed in an envelope exactly as it had been mailed to her. I had to open it and verify that it was the right election before I could let her vote. (It was, and I did).

6/
#electionofficer #elections

One of the most unusual things today is that school is in session. Most of the #elections they close the schools. But there are so many special elections right now they can’t. (1 in Dec, 2 in Jan, 1 each in Feb and March)

So the school has given us a music room off to one end. There’s a gate down in the hallway separating our wing from the rest of the school. This causes a few problems.

1. Voters go to the main entrance, out of habit. They can’t get in that way, and even if they did, you can’t get here from there. That irks some voters.

2. Normally we officers are welcome to use a teachers lounge (for microwave to heat our food, fridge, or tables for eating). Thanks to the gate, we can’t get to the lounge unless we leave the building and re-enter the main door by being buzzed in by the office staff.

3. The staff bathroom is usually what we use, but that is also on the other side of the gate. So we use the bathroom the kids use attached to the gym. Except then a teacher locked the gym when they left. So we had to get the staff to unlock it again.

5/
#electionofficer #election

Our precinct has a little over 2400 registered voters. We have had 38 in the first 3.5 hours.

We are in a small music room in an elementary school. It’s unusual in how small it is and in the fact that there is just one door. Often we are in a cafeteria, gymnasium, or library where there’s multiple doors. You can arrange a traffic flow from one door to the other.

It’s no big deal. Just one more thing we sorta manage on the day.

4/

#electionofficer #election

A member of the actual board of elections showed up to say thank you. Brought us a box of donuts. That’s nice. That’s another thing that has never happened before.

3/

#electionofficer #election

Since it’s such a small election, I have seen election staff that I rarely see. I met my “regional rover.” Every precinct has a designated “rover” who is in charge of solving runner-meets-the-road stuff on the day. Missing a piece of kit? Lock stuck and won’t open? Can’t figure out how to work something? The rover is nearby and should respond quickly. The regional rover is apparently the rover’s rover. I never met one, in 20 years doing this. 😀

2/
#electionofficer

So here’s a root post for my #electionofficer work. Mute or follow as it suits you.

It’s a special #election in Fairfax County Virginia. 17th district in the Virginia House of Delegates (like a state-level House of Representatives or House of Commons). Virginia also has a State Senate.

These districts are small. Where the full county is something like 250-300 precincts, today it’s just 19 precincts voting. It’s a single race: democrat or republican or write-in.

1/

Alarm set for 03:45 and coffee set to start at 04:00. Tomorrow is an #electionday and I’m an #electionofficer. I often post live through the day when I do. You can either mute or follow along as you like.

Tomorrow is a special election in Virginia’s 17th district for the general assembly. The new governor has been appointing people to roles in her administration and some were lawmakers. There have been 2 or 3 special #elections since November.

https://www.elections.virginia.gov/casting-a-ballot/calendars-schedules/upcoming-elections.html

As promised, the final #electionofficer post. I’m home with a glass of wine in my hand. I will be going to bed early. We got out about 8:15pm, which is such a change from the 8:45-9:00 exits we used to do. It gets easier each time. My chief was the fastest out in the whole county in September. We tried. We might have made the top 10, but we weren’t first.

We had about 550 voters over the day and all four races went democrat. Roughly 400-150. That’s not surprising. This is a pretty non-fascist area.

The day was intense in all the best ways. Lots to do. I learned so much. I will be much more relaxed and competent in the future. I know how to handle most anything now.

I did not jinx it. We did not hit 600 voters.

I got a lot of positive and interesting comments from you all. I enjoyed the conversations. I tried to get my fellow officers to understand how awesome mastodon is.

That’s it for #electionday #Election2025

23/fin

Almost 2pm and I’m just getting to shove down some lunch. The voter rush over the lunch hour was intense.

This precinct is #electionofficer on hard mode difficulty level. You name it, I’ve seen it today.

• lives here but not on the poll book
• moved elsewhere in the county but is allowed to vote here
• updated their registration with DMV but it didn’t show up here
• nowhere near here. Not even close.
• voter needs assistance in a language we don’t support (Urdu). But her (adult) son was here and he could do it
• voter marked inactive because mail from the county was returned undeliverable
• curbside
• no photo ID
• forgot their ID and had to come back
• authorised observer from a political party
• high school page

The chief here (a) has 30 #elections under his belt, (b) used to be a county employee IN the elections office working as a rover. I’ve got a dozen or more elections to my name. A bunch of experienced officers too. Now I see why they did that. I guess I should be flattered. I’m mostly flattened. 😜

18/

When we open and close the polls, the machines spit out these long reports that look like giant cash register receipts. They’re 4-5cm wide and probably 2m long. There’s 3 copies of important stuff. These are the opening tapes (just showing that there were 0 votes on the machines when we opened them). At the end of the night we will print 2 more and then do our accounting.

I’m the one who hung these up like this, but I learned it from someone in my September precinct. In that thread I waxed lyrical about how awesome one of my fellow officers was. She was just on top of it. Really diligent. Experienced. And she hung them like this at the end of the night.

So today our “rover” comes by. He’s a county employee who is part of the office of elections and can help with equipment or site issues or procedural issues or whatever. He saw the tapes hanging there and said “wow, what a good idea. I’m going to go back to the office and recommend that as a best practice to tell chiefs about.” I look smart, but I’m just doing what a smart person taught me. Apparently not that many people do this.

We do this because, at the end of the night, I have to make sure they are signed in 3 places and cut exactly right into 3 pieces that get attached to 3 different forms. Hanging them like that, especially when we get the closing tapes, makes that a lot easier.

#electionofficer

14/

A couple bizarre non-party signs that were posted out in the parking lot.
I really don’t understand the “only citizens vote” sign. I mean, yes, that is true. Is a bear catholic? Does the pope… wait, let me start over.

But really. Are they stating a fact? Are they trying to counter disinformation? I can’t figure out what they are trying to accomplish with this sign.

And the “stop raising taxes?” Well, I have a different opinion. Frankly, there’s a small set of people that we should tax the shit out of. I lived 10 years in the UK where VAT was 20%, a lot of my salary was taxed at 45%, and those shares I got as part of my compensation? Taxed at 55% (6 for them, 5 for me). That’s good. I promise you I had enough left over. I promise you that no one eligible for those tax rates is suffering.

When Americans moan about taxes or petrol prices, I roll my eyes. They don’t know what high taxes or high gas prices are. Taxes are good. Government services are good. Fund them and make people’s lives better.

Tax. The. Rich.

13/
#electionofficer #uspol #electionday

Some developments in #electionofficer #masking. In 118 voters I have seen 3 masked. But now 3 out of 8 officers are masked! Better than average. One woman had her husband bring her a mask (we are not allowed to leave the site until polls close and we finish our closing). Her husband, however, also brought her a box of tissues.

So, on the one hand, yay. Masking is good. On the other hand, it seems like she suspects that she is sick and it sure seems like she was not intending to mask until something changed her mind. Maybe it’s because she saw me masking, I can’t know unless she says something.

And then another officer suddenly was masking, so she must have had a mask handy and started wearing it.

This is the most masking I’ve seen in an #election in ages!

And as I type this, masked voter #4 out of 135 came in. Though to be fair, #3 was a chin-strap with his nose completely uncovered.

#WearAMask #CovidIsNotOver
12/

Cast your mind back to June 2020. Presidential #election is on people’s minds. #voters are gearing up. People who have never voted before are gonna register and #vote! (Yay!) in June 2020, in my district, the Republican Party held a primary for their federal races. The way we do it in Fairfax is the same mechanism as a real election. I assume the party compensates the county for the expense of running an election. But we run a party primary like any other election. In June 2020, the democrats did not run a primary.

One more quirk of Virginia (some states aren’t like this) is that (a) we don’t track what political party you’re affiliated with (if any) and (b) you can vote in any party primary, but only one party’s primary. Wanna flip back and forth between party primaries every other election? That’s acceptable by Virginia law. This means that you check in at the desk and tell us what party primary you want to vote in. That’s it. If there is only one party primary, every registered voter is elegible to vote in it, so we don’t even have to ask.

I live in an area with a high number of Democratic Party voters. In June 2020 a lot of new voters were showing up for the first time and were excited to vote before November. They’re inexperienced. They don’t know the difference between a party primary and an actual election. And frankly, in our county, the two events look identical except what’s on the ballot.

So a bunch of new voters show up intending to find some Democratic candidate to support. And they get this ballot and they’re like “WTF!? There’s nothing but republicans on this ballot! I’m not voting for a republican!”

We issued about 3 ballots to different people who left in a huff without voting. Then we started asking people, before we completed the check in. “It’s a republican primary on the ballot today. Is that what you want to vote in?” Plenty of people left without voting, but we didn’t have any more “fleeing voters” to account for in our paperwork.

#electionofficer
11/

You’d be surprised how many people register for #absenteevoting , get their ballot in the mail, and then bring it to the polling place. Or, they don’t bring it, and they rock up at the polling place and want to vote.

We KNOW we mailed you a ballot. Maybe you didn’t get it, maybe you did. You’re not voting in the polling place unless you surrender the one we mailed you. If you can’t surrender it, you have 2 choices: vote a provisional ballot, or go home and get it to surrender it.

You are definitely not taking the one we mailed you and putting it through the scanner. Even though they would totally work. Because that’s what they do at the office of elections if they decide to count your ballot.

We know how many ballots came in for our precinct. Every ballot must be accounted for. They go in a few places:

• into the scanner, counted
• into an envelope, spoiled
• into a provisional ballot, when there’s some uncertainty about your eligibility
• into a provisional ballot because you are doing a same-day registration (register to vote and vote for the first time in one motion)
• into an envelope, voided

What’s the difference between “spoiled” and “voided”?

I’m glad you asked.
#electionofficer
9/

Not surprisingly, I am the only #electionofficer wearing a mask. #voter number 50 was the first voter to come in wearing a mask.

Edit: if you look later in the thread, 2 of my fellow officers started masking! 3 out of 8 is more than usual.

#WearAMask #CovidIsNotOver
6/

We have only had 15 voters so far and I’ve already had to do 3 special #electionofficer things:

send a voter to the right precinctcheck in a voter who was marked “inactive”deal with a voter who just moved into this district. They get to vote, but they vote a provisional ballot and the forms they fill out today will update their voter registration.In past #elections I see maybe 1 or 2 of these in a day. So for me, seeing this many before 6:30am is unusual.

3/

I’m in a public library today. (I’m a reserve #electionofficer so I get random assignments each time. I never work the same precinct twice, it seems).

What makes this location unusual is that it is an #earlyvoting location before #electionday. If you vote early, you come in, tell them your name and address, and they figure out what district you’re in. Then they print the right ballot for you right there. Anyone from any precinct in Fairfax County can vote at any early voting site. This means that for the last 3 weeks or so, people have been coming to this #library and #voting early.

But if you #vote ON election day, you may only vote in the precinct where you are assigned. (Where you live) So we will get voters today who come in and say “But my wife/son/neighbour voted here just last Thursday!” And that’s absolutely true. And today we have to look them up and say “we are sorry, but you must vote at XYZ.”

So we turn away a LOT of voters here on election day because they expect to vote here when they don’t live here. I’m told by the regulars that it can be as high as 30% of people who walk up.

2/

Here is my root post for my #electionofficer thread. It’s #electionday for #Election2025. I’m serving as an officer in #fairfax county #virginia. While I work the polls I talk about what’s happening, what I’m seeing, and a little behind-the-scenes on working elections. It’s 06:20 now and I’ve been here since 05:00 and I haven’t had a chance to post yet. It’s busier than you’d expect. I’ll explain why when I get a chance.

🧵Welp. It’s another #electionday in #virginia. In our 11th congressional district, the sitting representative, Gerry Connolly, died while in office. So today is a special election to fill that seat. For a few months of the current administration’s turmoil, I have had no rep on Congress at all.

I’m an #electionofficer in Fairfax County and I’ll be live posting during the #election day. I expect it to be sleepy.

I’ll make the whole thread replies to this post. And I’ll tag it all #electionofficer. So you can use that to either tune in or tune out as it suits you.

🧵1/

“She Won” election conspiracy theories defy belief and do not help

Over the past two weeks, I’ve seen a few friends share a post alleging a sweeping conspiracy to steal the presidential election–not the 2020 election, as Donald Trump and his cult followers have been alleging without proof ever since, but the 2024 contest. These friends have not vouched for the theory put forth in that post and a series of others posted at a newsletter site; at most, they’ve said things along the lines of “these raise interesting questions.”

So I read those “This Will Hold” posts and a separate report posted by a group called the Common Coalition. To summarize thousands of words of copy: They allege that surprising results in swing states and even individual counties–notably, voters choosing Democrats downballot and then picking Trump or not voting for any presidential candidate–are too statistically unlikely to be the result of voters making their own choices and instead are the result of an elaborate plot involving compromised Tripp Lite uninterruptible power supplies that were remotely reprogrammed on Elon Musk’s orders via SpaceX’s Starlink satellites to change vote totals on Dominion and ES&S voting systems.

No, really. Speaking as a tech journalist who has written a fair amount about SpaceX and as a poll worker who has put in 15-plus hour days helping people to vote in nine elections: I’m sorry, but I can only regard them as engagingly-written claptrap. 

Here’s why I think that:

• If so many UPSes were shipped with hidden cellular modems and antennas to election offices in counties, cities and states run by Democratic administrations, how have none of them surfaced? (Bear in mind, election offices don’t have huge budgets to buy high-end hardware. I have never seen anything but generic power strips in my own polling places.)
• At the end of 2024 and still today, Starlink’s only widely-available service to phones is text messaging. SpaceX has done limited tests of data, but Elon Musk was willing to roll the dice on that working clandestinely in dozens or hundreds of devices across the U.S.? 
• Trump or Musk tweeting out absurd claims or preditions is no kind of proof or confession, because they both shitpost all the time while rarely intersecting with reality.
• No part of this extensive conspiracy inside SpaceX has leaked at any point, even as SpaceX employees have come forward to accuse Musk of sexual harassment and indifference to workplace safety at considerable risk to themselves. 
• This Will Hold’s posts don’t mention the “risk-limiting audits” that a growing number of states conduct to check for exactly this kind of post-election ballot tampering. Nevada’s, for example, found “no variations” from the reported results. Ignoring risk-limiting audits in a theory of election fraud is an enormous tell, because election-integrity experts will tell you they’re as essential as hand-marked paper ballots scanned by machines (which is why every state should adopt them). See, for example, the National Academies’ 2018 report Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy.
• If people really had cast votes for Harris that somehow vanished, why have we not seen that variance in post-election polling and surveys of voters? See, for example, the data-science firm Catalist’s “What Happened in 2024” analysis and the Pew Research Center’s just-published report on 2024 turnout.
• Many voters really did leave the presidential part of their ballot blank. In Virginia (where the first warnings of a Kamala Harris loss were returns from Loudoun County showing her underperforming Biden’s 2020 numbers), the former vice president got 2,335,395 votes while Sen. Tim Kaine (D) got 2,417,115 votes. In my state and, it seems, others, her problem was Trump getting more turnout from 2020 voters and from new voters than she did.
• Musk spending $250 million and change to persuade those people to vote probably did shape the outcome. So did Trump lying about his opponent and a great many other things while presenting himself as an icon of never-surrender success, with Fox News amplifying all that. But the die may have been cast when Joe Biden decided to run for reelection despite evident trouble selling his message and then not dropping out until July of 2024—leaving Harris to answer the hardest call to the bullpen in American presidential-election history. 

The unfortunate and ugly reality is that American voters showed awful judgment last November, and we are now all paying the price for that. There’s just a meanness in this world, as Springsteen sings, and our country is not and has never been exempt from it. Conspiracy theories might help people think otherwise, but this kind of self-delusional behavior will not help write a different script for 2026 and 2028.

#2024Election #CommonCoalition #conspiracyTheories #DonaldTrump #electionIntegrity #electionOfficer #ElonMusk #grift #grifters #KamalaHarris #pollWorker #SpaceX #Starlink #ThisWillHold #TrippLite #turnout

#electionofficer diary Training my self to awaken at 3am for tomorrow #electionday drive across the county to work til polls closed and all counted signed sealed and delivered, literally. Among other hazards for #pollworkers: Hitting a deer in the dark. #VoteDammit
@heidilifeldman @KamalaHarrisWin