Rank Them All
Every two years the State sends me to a regional hall to be taught again how to verify an election, and every two years I am the woman in the third row who has done it before and is expected to look interested. This year the instructor was a young man with a laminated flowchart, which I respected. A flowchart is a promise that someone has thought about the awkward case in advance.
For those who have only ever seen the answer on the evening report, here is what the National Voting System does with a ranked vote. Each voter ranks the candidates in order. The system tallies first preferences. If no candidate has a majority, it applies the prescribed elimination and transfer rules until the count produces a result. My office does not spend election night carrying paper ballots from one pile to another. We reconcile the county's participation and election records against the NVS reports, check the steps recorded in the tabulation, and flag anything that does not agree. When a question needs independent examination, the Elections Panel's standards govern how we investigate it. The watching is not a courtesy. It is part of the method.
Last week a woman came to the Weller County office and asked to see the verification room. She turned out to be Tamsin Hadley, who is on the ballot for the Senate seat Selvane fills this spring. The seat has had the same senator for twelve years, which is as long as the Constitution allows, so for the first time in a dozen years nobody on the ballot gets to say "incumbent." Hadley was a county auditor in the next county over, so she understood what a verification room was. She wanted to see ours.
She asked three questions. How long does it take? The system can tabulate quickly; verifying the record takes the time the record requires. Could she send someone to observe the work? Subject to the same access and security rules as everyone else, yes; her opponents could do the same, and each could inspect the published record. Would she know the result on the night? I told her that a screen displaying a tally is not the same thing as a certified federal result. The Elections Panel certifies that result after the required checks. She wrote that down. I liked her for it.
I do not tell people how I vote, and I would ask you not to guess. What I will say is that a Senate seat runs six years, and in six years we will have one regular election for this seat. I would like our part of it to be right. Most of what keeps a county's verification honest is dull: two people checking an exception report, a record of who accessed a restricted file, a discrepancy that stays open until someone can explain it. The National Voting System performs the routine count. We make sure the local record stands up to scrutiny. Dull is the product.
She left her card. I put it in the drawer with the cards of everyone else who has ever asked to see the verification room. It is a short stack. I hope it is taller by spring.