2005 was a huge local election year, and our
workload was significantly higher than past election years. There were 69 offices open this year
and 229 candidates within the County, and we had several propositions on
the ballot as well. This constitutes
over 60% of all the elected offices within Tompkins County. With HAVA legislation being passed in July,
we had plenty to do to get ready for all the changes that will be taking place
across the state and within our office in the next few years. Added to this, we obtained a SARA Grant for
Full Document Imaging. Of course, time
made it necessary to start the project in October, amidst the chaos of a
General election.
On top of an increased workload, there were
staffing changes as well. Krystal
Hastings was hired on as the Republican Sr. Elections Clerk in January. Two project assistants were hired in
October, just to work on the Full Document project. County Personnel provided
staff to quickly start the Full Document project until we were able to hire two
project assistants.
The entire staff put in extra hours this fall
to ensure that all the necessary work was completed by our deadlines, and no
voter was left behind.
Also, Elizabeth Cree passed on the presidency
of the Election Commissioner’s Association to Commissioner Burke from Greene
County in June.
The Commissioners lobbied the state legislators
and New York State finally passed legislation regarding HAVA requirements such
as the Statewide Voter Database, Centralization, and Inspectors/Machine
Custodians.
There is still no Statewide Database, however,
with new legislation in place, progress has been made. The State Board has hosted several meetings
across the state regarding this matter that both the Commissioners, and Deputy
Commissioner Tom Paolangeli have attended.
NYS has set preliminary standards for new voting machines, and vendors
are still in the process of meeting these standards and getting their machines
certified. We continued the process of
requesting ID’s when necessary, and prior to the elections, voters still
needing I.D. were sent letters, giving them the opportunity to comply before
they went to vote. We also verified license
numbers with DMV records, and those that did not match were also sent a
letter. A list of those who had failed
to provide identification was provided to the inspectors at each district, with
instructions on how to proceed. Those
on the list were required to fill out a HAVA sheet that we prepared, which
asked for ID and listed the several options.
We had no voters who were unable to show ID on Election Day, and no
complaints were made. All in all the
process again went smoothly.
With State Legislation mandating centralization,
this office has been preparing accordingly.
After the General Election, we began taking possession of the old
machines as required by law. Currently,
we have machines from the City of Ithaca, the Town of Ithaca, and the Town of
Lansing for a total of 46 machines. We
are storing the machines in the Old Library Building. We have been coordinating with the Town Clerks to take over the
rest of the machines in the next few weeks.
All the Town Clerks were invited to two meetings with the Commissioners
to discuss the consolidation process and to discuss any issues the Town Clerks
had with centralization. The Town
Clerks have been working with the machines and inspectors for years, and we
thought it would be helpful to get their input. The old machines are still being used for Village Elections and
the Ithaca City School Board Election.
As of yet, no new voting machine has been certified, and we anticipate
using the current machines in the fall elections as well. The Commissioners have been strategizing on
how best to handle the new responsibility of election inspectors and machine
custodians. In the past we have always
recruited and assigned these positions, but we are now also responsible for
their pay and training. Through the
budget process, we have managed to get inspector and machine custodian pay
significantly increased in order to better enlist higher quality
assistance.
LOCAL YEAR
229 Candidates makes for a very busy year. 198 designating petitions and 31
independent petitions were filed. We also had several close races this year,
especially in the Town of Enfield where the Town Supervisor’s race came down
to just ONE vote. The Commissioners were counting absentee and affidavit
ballots for weeks.
MAILCHECK
A total of 51,780 mail check cards were
mailed out on August 26, 2005 to all registered voters in Tompkins County. The mail check cards serve several purposes
including verification of residence and mailing addresses, notification of
election information, and the recruitment of election inspectors. This year we made a few changes to our
normal procedure. We used yellow cards
instead of the standard white cards in the hope that they would capture the
attention of the voter. In the past we have
found that voters assume the cards are junk mail and throw them away without a
second glance. Later they call to
complain they were never notified of the upcoming election dates. Also, on the card we stated what type of
Party Primary was occurring this year.
Many voters receive these cards and believe that they all are eligible
for the Primary Election, then show up at the polls only to be told that they
cannot vote, or to see that their polling place was closed because there was no
Primary in their town. This led to some
very discouraged voters. We hoped the
new cards would avoid some of this confusion.
Because some election districts contained a very large number of voters,
new election districts were created.
Mail check cards helped notify affected voters of their new polling
site.
|
Mail Check Forwardable |
1,033 |
In County Transfers |
1,946 |
|
Mail Check Nonforwardable |
4,548 |
Miscellaneous Returns |
1,336 |
|
Total cards returned |
9,446 |
|
|
NATIONAL CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Every year the Board compares the voter rolls
against the National Post Office Listing in May. This year we had a total of 1837 changes.
|
In County
Transfers |
653 |
|
Out of
County Transfers (Inactive) |
1108 |
INSPECTORS
This year we conducted three major
inspector-training classes with approximately 40 people per class. These were followed by several smaller
training sessions for new inspectors, and for those who were unable to attend
the previous training. Inspector
recruitment is still a difficult process, but hopefully with the pay increase,
it will become easier in the future. We
are constantly looking for new inspectors, and we appreciate all the help we
receive from the County and from current inspectors.
This year, Kate Bortz processed 1,497 absentee
applications and ballots were sent out.
Of those, 1,066 were returned.
Each year, the Senior Clerks visit nursing homes within the county. In order to visit a nursing home, they must
have at least 25 eligible voters for the election. This year we visited both Kendall and Longview for the General
Election. We hand delivered 101 ballots
to residents of the nursing home, who are eligible for a permanent ballot.
SPECIAL ACTIVITIES AND PROJECTS
After
our success last year with our results database, Laura Owens, developed
databases for Petition filing, Campaign Finance Disclosures, and
Inspectors. This way we are able to
easily track information from past years in order to streamline our processes. At the Annual State Board of Elections
Conference in May, we were again awarded a Certificate of Outstanding
Achievement for Innovative Concepts developed in the field of Election
Administration & Operation for both our access databases and web
development.
Every year we use the Lions Club to help us answer phones and tally results. This year, we had several student interns answering phones for us on the night of the Primary Election. These were high school students who were interested government operations and the election process. They were fun to work with, and it was great to see such enthusiasm.
WEBSITE UPDATE
This year Tom Paolangeli continued to update our website on a daily basis providing detailed information to the constituents year round. There is now more content that is better organized. The website has proven to be a useful tool for the public with 17,413 hits.
This year, budget time was particularly hectic. With so many new procedures and costs being added to our workload, the Commissioners worked very closely with the Legislature and the County Administrator to put together a solid budget that allowed us to follow the federal and state mandates that have been thrown at us. Centralization alone has added many new and ongoing costs that we have never had to account for before. The process was long and tedious, but in the end we were able to sort it all out. We want to give a special thanks to the legislators for all of their assistance during this very important time period.
This year we started putting out a quarterly inspector newsletter. This newsletter goes out to all of our inspectors. It has articles written by both new and seasoned inspectors about working the polls, along with helpful hints about problems that have occurred in the past and potential issues in the future. We have also been providing updates about HAVA legislation and what it means to the inspectors on Election Day. We have received several compliments from inspectors about how useful it is. It is nice for them to hear from us throughout the year rather than just before election time. We have also been using it recruit new inspectors. It gives people an idea of what the job entails.
With an increasing population in
Tompkins County, our registration rolls have been increasing as well. Several districts within the town have seen
a large increase. Because of this, it
was necessary to create 3 new election districts and to redraw the election
lines within Ward 2 in the City of Ithaca.
Commissioner DeWitt worked diligently to even out the details. After the redistricting we sent out notices
to all of the voters who were affected by the change. Many of them had different polling locations for the elections in
the fall, and we wanted to cut down on the amount of confusion on election
day.
This
fall we obtained the SARA Grant that we applied for last year. We have already started the process of
scanning all of our back files, however for the next few months we will be very
busy scanning in all of our forms by the deadline we were given in April. The grant also gives us money for 2 project
assistants who we hired in October.
Jennifer Terpening (an election inspector) and Shaheen Rogers (formerly
of the District Attorney’s office) have joined us and will be assisting us with
the Full Document project for the next several months.
NEW VOTING MACHINES
Some
State Legislation has been passed for the new voting machines. However; the vendors are still in the
process of having their voting machines certified by the State Board. Until the State certifies a voting machine,
we will not be able to purchase new machines.
We are hoping this will happen soon.
We would like to begin the process of purchasing and training as soon as
possible. All of our staff needs to be
trained before we can begin the process of educating the public and training
our inspectors.
2006
will be a very busy year for us. We
have several countywide races, plus senatorial and congressional races. In addition to our regular duties here at
the board, we will be implementing major changes in all of our procedures. We will be maintaining the staff levels we
have had for the last year, despite the significantly increased workload caused
by the HAVA changes. Our two project
assistants are funded through the SARA grant and therefore are only permitted
to work on Full Document Imaging. As
always, the Board of Elections is committed to holding itself the highest
standards, and we will continue to strive toward excellence in all
elections.
Respectfully submitted,