Where are we, and where are we going?

CRS 1-10-101.5. Duties of the canvass board.

The canvass board shall reconcile the ballots cast in an election to confirm that the number of ballots counted in that election does not exceed the number of ballots cast in that election. The canvass board also shall certify the abstract of votes cast in any election.

Progress during day-3

Most of the temporary workers were excused after completing only a portion of the canvass.

After noon an incomplete set of absentee voting records were made available. Additional materials requested include a complete log of ballots printed and issued, a poll book containing the data required by CRS 1-8-108, and a electronic version of the poll book that can be sorted and summarized as needed for verification.

There is no precinct poll book identifying who voted and which ballot each voter was issued. This has made it impractical/impossible to verify that the correct ballot was issued to a voter. It appears that voters were issued the wrong ballot, and in some cases were issued sample ballots.

Plan for day-4

Confirming that ballots counted do not exceed ballots cast

To perform its duty, the Canvass Board must know and confirm the numbers of ballots counted and cast by party, race, method and precinct.

The number of ballots counted is reported on the abstract of votes, and might be verified by comparison with the scanned ballot reports.

The number of ballots cast can be verified using the physical materials. Each voting method has a unique method of determining and verifying the number of ballots cast, as summarized below.

Election results report totals for each political party, for each race, for each method of voting, and for each precinct. Each ballot is tracked to verify that it is not recorded for the wrong party, race, voting method, or precinct.

There are 3 political parties – Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian. There are 5 voting methods --- absentee, early, precinct, provisional, and emergency. Boulder County is divided into 229 precincts.

Absentee

To calculate the number of absentee ballots cast, something like the following formula might be used:

The number of absentee ballots printed
MINUS the number of absentee ballots unused
MINUS the number of absentee ballots replaced
MINUS the number of absentee ballots duplicated
MINUS the number of absentee ballot packets not returned by the voter
MINUS the number of absentee ballot packets returned by the Post Office as undeliverable
MINUS the number of return envelopes that arrived too late to count
MINUS the number of return envelopes disqualified
MINUS the number of ballots disqualified after opening the return envelope
PLUS the number of disqualified packets that were cured and accepted

Precinct

To calculate the number of precinct ballots cast, something like the following formula might be used:

The number of precinct ballots printed
MINUS the number of precinct ballots unused
MINUS the number of provisional ballots issued
MINUS the number of precinct ballots replaced
MINUS the number of precinct ballots duplicated

Early

To calculate the number of early ballots cast, something like the following formula might be used:

Number of early ballots printed
MINUS number of early ballots unused
MINUS number of early ballots replaced
MINUS number of early ballots duplicated

Provisional

To calculate the number of provisional ballots cast, something like the following formula might be used:

Number of provisional ballots issued
MINUS number of provisional ballots denied
MINUS number of provisional ballots replaced
MINUS number of provisional ballots duplicated

Emergency

To calculate the number of emergency ballots cast, something like the following formula might be used:

The number of emergency ballots printed
MINUS the number of emergency ballots unused
MINUS the number of emergency ballots replaced
MINUS the number of emergency ballots duplicated

Certifying the abstract of votes cast

To certify the abstract of votes cast requires that the canvass board verify that the votes on ballots are correctly interpreted and that the votes that are interpreted are correctly counted.

One method of achieving this is to compare the hand recorded votes on a sample of ballots to computer record of votes corresponding to each sample ballot, and to independently tabulate the computer records of votes.

This canvass board has not as yet received a copy of a report titled “abstract of votes” so we are unclear as to details.