Question: which states deliver voting machines on election morning to avoid sleepovers?

[GuvWurld]

I'm interested to learn how any given county might use the postal service, sheriff, or whomever to deliver voting machines to polling places on the morning of elections rather than sending the machines home with pollworkers for sleepovers.

[NMDemDist2]

1. here in our county they are delivered to a secure location at the polling

place in the week before the election

the pollworkers get them out and open them up on election day

they are these units

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/m100.html

[GuvWurld]

3. huh?

how is it that each of your many polling places is considered to have an area that is secure? surely before the machines are distributed they are kept at one central location secured under the auspices of your elections department. that can be hard enough to accept, at times. but spreading the machines around for a week in churches and schools that can't possibly all have areas with both suitable alarms and environmental protections? this is not what I'm looking for, but thanks for making me think!

actually, one non-rhetorical question: how is the distribution of the machines done? who delivers them?

[NMDemDist2]

6. the county Election board workers deliver them and yes, they are

secured until the election.

the polling places are picked by three criteria, precinct served, handicapped accessible and a locked location to leave the equipment.

also, the scanner has a locked cover and under that, a numbered lock over the data card access that was installed and locked by the County Clerk and his/her staff at a specific time that is open to the public.

Our county now also has the ability to program the memory cards onsite in the County Clerk's office.

while none of this absolutely insures the scanner will tally the ballots correctly, there *ARE* voter marked ballots to recount if needed

around here, there are so many locations to choose from there has never been a problem finding a place to lock them up. and even if someone did access them, they would have to have the same numbered lock that closes the access door to the memory card to tamper with them.

the poll workers are trained to check the number lock with their paper work before they open the polling place.

the weakest link IMO is the central processing unit at the County Clerk's office. but even then, the CPU numbers have to agree with the onsite scanner print out at the time of the polls closing.

it could be done, but it would take some serious effort with key people in the right places to substantially change an election.

[GuvWurld]

7. thanks for the added info

I'm glad you (seem to) feel confident. I'm in rural northern CA and we have a very tough time finding suitable polling places. We could never do it as you described and unfortunately rely on sleepovers now. However, I would like to generate a realistic proposal for delivery of the machines on the morning of the elections so if you have any thoughts that might help...

[NMDemDist2]

8. having worked for the County Election board this last election

it's damned near impossible to do it the same day.

it took our staff of 3 with hired trucks and helpers 4 days to deliver 46 polling stations in a relatively small county

:shrug:

you'd need access to the polling stations in the middle of the night and even if you delivered all the other crap you need at the polling stations the week prior, it would still be a logistical nightmare to the Elections board who's day starts at 5AM on Election day and goes well past midnight tallying returns after the polls close.

I don't know too many government workers who are willing to work a 24 hour day and if they did the mistakes at the end of the day would be exponentially greater due to fatigue when trying to get the tallies done when the (amateur, poorly trained) poll workers finally get the polls closed and the numbers in.

you'd be amazed at the logistics it takes to get those polling places set up!

[GuvWurld]

9. let's revisit the OP here

I appreciate what you are saying and don't mean to make light of the challenges involved. I started this thread because I am under the impression that there are at least some states that do what I'm suggesting. I thought that WA uses the postal service but then I learned from Land Shark that the state is about 95% mail-in. So I'm not sure what I had heard before and thought I could start fresh with the question in the OP. Feel free to keep kicking the thread until Wilms or garybeck comes along later tonight.

[yourout]

2. As far as I am concerned they should have a permenant sleepover with....

the local recycling centers.

[GuvWurld]

4. that's too kind

I wouldn't recycle them into anything. but otherwise, I hear ya and I'm with ya :thumbsup:

[Wilms]

10. Why do you hate recycling?

:D

http://www.electronicsrecycling.org

[orpupilofnature57]

5. It should have the same securities and accuracy checks as currency!

being it is the living organ of Democracy.

[eomer]

11. Here in Miami-Dade County, Florida

I volunteered to observe the closing each day at an early voting location, which was a public library. A few days before election day they delivered the election day machines and related equipment and left them stored off to the side in the same room that was being used for early voting. Each DRE was in its case with a security seal and the cases were stacked into pallets of about 6 or 8 high with plastic strapping (not security type but just the type that is typically used in shipping) around each pallet. The room was locked at night.

The polling place that I volunteered at on election day, a classroom at a middle school, was a location that had not been used for early voting. I got the impression that the machines had been delivered in a similar fashion into the classroom sometime before election day. I don't believe the classroom was locked (rather I think it was in use) during the time before election day when the machines were stored there. I believe that they had used the same procedure of delivering pallets that were secured with security seals on the DRE cases and straps on the pallets. I'm not 100% certain of this information about the election day polling place but am fairly sure because of things the poll workers said as they were packing things up at the very end -- they were putting the machines back into the same stacks that they had found them in in the morning and then they left them stacked that way so that someone else would come and pick them up the following day.

[GuvWurld]

12. Thanks eomer

:hi:

still hoping for a connection to same day delivery

[GuvWurld]

13. Kick (eom)