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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 05-05-2016 - 4-c - March 15, 2016 Primary Election Report 1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: May 5, 2016 Action Agenda Item No. 4-c SUBJECT: March 15, 2016 Primary Election Report DEPARTMENT: Elections ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: March 15, 2016 Election Report Tracy Reams, 919-245-2350 PURPOSE: To receive a presentation with updates on items of interest from the March 15, 2016 Election. BACKGROUND: At the April 5, 2016 Board meeting, Commissioners Mark Dorosin and Penny Rich requested that Board of Elections Director Tracy Reams provide a report to the Board on the March 15, 2016 primary election. A written report is attached, and Tracy Reams will discuss the report and additional information at the meeting. FINANCIAL IMPACT: There is no financial impact associated with receiving the presentation. SOCIAL JUSTICE IMPACT: There is no Social Justice Goal impact associated with receiving the presentation. RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board receive the presentation and provide any comments and questions. 2 ©`age . X04 h ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS Ri P Z 208 S. Cameron Street 17 e Post Office Box 220 Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 „lo Telephone: (919)245-2350 Fax:(919)644-3318 Kathy Knight, Chair Bob Randall,Secretary Jamie Cox, Member Tracy Reams, Director To: Orange County Board of County Commissioners From: Tracy Reams, Director of Elections Date: April 13, 2016 Re: March 15, 2016 Primary Election Report Following is a report of various activities and statistical information relating to the March 15, 2016 Elections held in Orange County for your review. • Pre-Election — The staff completed all pre-election tasks in a timely manner. This included, but not limited to filing candidates, receiving and auditing campaign finance reports, coordinating voting machine/equipment delivery and pickup, recruiting and training One-Stop staff and Election Day precinct officials, ordering and receipt of ballots,preparing precinct supplies,processing voter registration forms and absentee ballot requests. Thorough logic and accuracy testing was completed on every voting machine to ensure votes were recorded properly. We held several staff training sessions to ensure all were well trained with using the new voting equipment. Laptops were loaded with one-stop voting software and setup at the one-stop sites in addition to loading software on 132 Election Day laptops. The staff trained and certified"Multi-Partisan Assistance Teams" (MAT) to assist with requesting and casting absentee ballots for voters in assisted living homes. The MAT team was deployed to various sites in the county as requested. From January 1, 2016 thru March 15, 2016 the staff processed 4,822 new registrations, 2,126 duplicate registrations, 3,065 changes of information and removed 2,199 registrations from the voter rolls. A total of 10,812 voter cards were generated and mailed during this time. My staff worked together efficiently and accomplished our goal to have all registrations entered prior to the beginning of One-Stop voting. 3 • Absentee Voting— As directed by the Elections Board, we established 6 one-stop early voting sites with a total of 426 cumulative hours. The votes cast at each site are as follows: (total 19,989) 3,866 - Hillsborough BOE 816 - Efland Ruritan Bldg. 5,055 - Carrboro Town Hall 913 -New Hope Community Center 5,477 - Chapel of the Cross 3,862 - Seymour Senior Center There were 930 Absentee By-Mail ballots counted for a total of 20,919 ballots cast prior to Election Day. We processed 1,309 new voter registrations that registered and voted during the one-stop voting period and 1,232 change of addresses. We trained and staffed a total of 45 people to work the six voting sites. • Election Day— Election Day voting was steady at all precincts with 26,551 ballots cast. All precincts were open at 6:30 a.m. as required. We had a total of 273 precinct officials working in 44 precincts. We did experience substantial lines at a couple of our polling places starting around 7:00 pm until the polls closed. All voters in line at 7:30 pm were able to cast a ballot. My reports indicate the longest line at 7:30 pm was at the Cheeks Precinct, Gravely Middle School, Efland with approximately 175 people who voted after 7:30 pm. Voting continued at this site for approximately an hour after closing to process voters in line at 7:30 pm. I am happy to report that we did not have a single voting tabulator machine issue in the county. The voting tabulator equipment was very well received by the precinct officials and the voters. Precinct officials reported the ease of use was very much appreciated. The only issues we had with voting equipment are the aging ADA compliance machines. We had a few with screen and print issues. Due to the support of the BOCC, we are ready to replace the ADA machines as soon as approved by the State Board of Elections. Precinct officials reported few problems processing voters. The Primary Election was the first election to employ electronic poll-books countywide. We conducted over 30 pre-election training sessions to ensure precinct officials were well trained. We did note that there were some precincts that need additional training and/or duty reassignments that we will address prior to the November General Election. Some of the Chief Judges did not have the "best" computer persons checking in voters which caused some voter delay. The Elections Board discussed this and staff is prepared to take care of making the precinct assignments where needed. There were no noteworthy issues with voters presenting an acceptable photo ID. The Board conducted a post-election meeting with the Chief Judges on April 4 to gather feedback from the officials on what worked well, what didn't and what we can improve on. The consensus from the meeting was that there were voters who did not agree with the photo ID requirements but most of the voters were prepared to show a photo ID without any issues. We employed greeters to inform voters of the photo ID requirement and to answer any questions prior to check in. I 4 was told this was very helpful and expedited the check in process. We also were able to employ 13 student assistants who were great on the computers. Kathy Knight, Elections Board Chair is planning on contacting the School Boards to see if we could have more collaboration and assistance in recruiting more student assistants for the General Election. Greeters and student assistants were well received by our precinct officials and voters. The main complaint we received from the post-election meeting was the need to have better signage to inform voters that cell phones and other electronic devices are not allowed to be used within the voting enclosure. We have designed and ordered signage that will be posted outside the entrance of every voting location for the June 7 Primary Election. Complaints we received from voters was the need to state their name and address even though it was correct as listed on their photo ID, the desire to vote a party ballot for which they were not registered and not knowing where their assigned Election Day polling site is. By law, the voter must state their name and address even if we have the information on the photo ID. Voters who voted outside of their registered party were given a provisional ballot. The only contests that could be counted on those ballots were for school board (if eligible) and the bond referendum. Voters incorrectly assume they can vote at the one-stop sites we setup for early voting on Election Day. We had banners made to post at all early voting sites to inform voters that this not an Election Day voting site and they must go to their assigned precinct with information on how to get the correct site information. Not really sure it helped since we still had a lot of people entering these sites expecting to vote. We did have push cards on hand so that workers there could hand out to voters so that they will have a list of the polling locations. Election Night results were reported and uploaded to website with no issues. • Post-Election— A total of 483 Provisional ballots were cast. The Elections Board fully counted 123,partially counted 29 and denied 331. There were 135 Provisionals cast due to no acceptable photo ID. Of the 135, 108 were denied. 27 voters brought acceptable photo ID to the BOE office and their provisional ballots were counted. 22 Provisionals were cast indicating a"reasonable impediment"that was counted. Provisionals were denied due to no record of registration, no acceptable ID,previously removed and voter moved out of county more than 30 days. Data was uploaded from the electronic poll books to complete voter history entry in record time. Voter history was completed by the end of the day after the election with the cooperation of staff to work late to get it done. Entry time has been reduced by 3 to 4 days with the implementation of electronic poll books. Board and staff conducted the sample audit count for two precincts as directed by the State Board of Elections to ensure machine accuracy. The ending hand-eye counts were the same as the Election Day machine count. The Board certified the official results on March 22. 5 We have until May 13 to report our absentee results by precinct. With the purchase of the new high speed counter we completed this task and reported all 21,070 absentee ballot results by precinct on March 31. Run time has greatly improved using the DS850. We also used the DS850 to separate and record all the write-ins on Election Day. This task was previously completed by precinct officials on election night. Eliminating this challenging task from their various duties has been most appreciated by our officials. There were 2,368 write-ins sorted and reported by staff the day after the election. The acquisition of electronic poll books and updated voting equipment has greatly enhanced the service we provide to the voters of Orange County. The Elections Board would not have been able to achieve our goal to provide the best possible service to Orange County residents without the continued support of the Orange County Board of County Commissioners. Thank you for your much appreciated support. Voter turnout statistics for previous elections held in Orange County. Election Registered Voters Total Voter Turnout 2016 March Primary 108,925 43.72% 2014 November General 109,158 48.52% 2014 May Primary 105,935 19.35% 2012 November General 111,851 68.89% 2012 May Primary 105,111 43.84% 2010 November General 102,462 45.02% 2010 May Primary 100,189 15.0% 2008 November General 105,540 71.25% 2008 May Primary 96,606 48.26% 2006 November General 91,140 38.86% 2006 May Primary 88,944 13.23% 2004 November General 95,570 68.15% 2004 July Primary 83,782 21.95% 2002 General Election 93,352 37.39% 2002 September Primary 91,425 19.40% 6 ELECTION , ,1 PROTECTION aChr ET* North Carolina Primary-March 15th,2016 From the start of the early voting period through Election Day, the Election Protection hotlines, 888-OURVOTE (managed by Democracy NC)and 866-OURVOTE(managed by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law), received over 1200 calls from North Carolina voters. On Election Day,the hotlines received 988 calls from individuals with North Carolina area codes,with the majority of the calls fielded at UNC School of Law. While many callers had questions about registration status and polling place locations, Election Protection also received a number of calls from voters who encountered barriers to their ability to vote. 72 reports involved questions or problems with Voter ID,and 28 were to report long lines.A few voter stories are highlighted below: Long lines,students in a separate line,and a lack of provisional ballots: Election Protection received reports of long lines at multiple polling places in Buncombe County, including the Heavens Cloud Retreat Center and the Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church. At the Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church polling location, students were split into a separate line and had to wait,while other voters passed them in line. An Election Protection volunteer reported the issue to the Buncombe County Board of Elections, who said that they would speak with the poll workers at that location. Long-time voter not on voter roll at polling place where she has voted for last 30 years: A woman in Durham County went to her polling place where she has voted for the past 30 years but a poll worker could not find her on the voter rolls. After searching the voter rolls several times and then asking the chief judge for help,the poll worker offered the voter a provisional ballot. The voter did not want to vote provisionally and went to the Board of Elections where she waited in line for another 45 minutes before she was able to cast a regular ballot. An Election Protection volunteer was able to verify her voter registration status and noted that she has voted in 62 previous elections. The voter indicated she was concerned for other voters who may not have had the time or resources to follow up in the way she did in order to ensure that they cast a ballot that counts. Election Protection Helps 93-Year-Old Voter to Cast a Ballot: A 93-year-old voter was initially denied a ballot after attempting to vote with an expired ID. After she left the polling place, a Democracy'NC poll monitor and Election Protection hotline volunteer informed her of her right to vote with the ID. Armed with this information, she went back to the polling place, informed the poll workers that she should be allowed to vole with an expired ID (as she is over the age of 70),and was allowed to cast her vote. No notification of last minute polling place location: At North Carolina Central University, the polling place was moved from the student union to the law school. This change was not reflected on the Durham County Board of Elections website for most of the day, and no signs were present indicating the change and directing voters to the new location. An Election Protection volunteer created a sign to inform voters of the move and redirected over 100 people to the new polling location. Many of the voters were elderly and had trouble getting across campus, which included a steep hill. As of 4:15 p.m. EDT, several hours after the opening of the polls,the Durham County Board of Elections appeared to have updated their website. Voters waiting for hours in Wilmington,Durham: Long lines were reported at the VFW polling location in Wilmington where voters were waiting over an hour to vote, many of whom were elderly. An Election Protection volunteer encouraged voters to stay in line, but counted at least 17 people who left the polling location without casting a ballot. Similarly, long lines were reported at multiple polling locations in Durham. At 7:30pm,there were over 200 voters in line at the East Regional Library.