This election, Shasta will have ‘poll closers.’ Here’s what they’ve been assigned to do
Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis is introducing a new role into the local election process: poll closers. The temporary election staffers, who have received about an hour and a half of training, will sort ballots at the precincts. Curtis hopes adding the new role will help him provide quicker results on election night.
Shasta’s hundreds of poll workers will accommodate a new process at the polls this year: the presence of nearly 100 “poll closers,” who will sort ballots at precincts before they’re taken to the election office for machine counting.
It’s a change being implemented by County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis in an effort to speed up ballot processing on Election Day. California law requires ROVs to process all precinct ballots, or those cast in person by voters at the precincts, on the evening of the election.
Last election, that process was slowed by another change Curtis made to local elections: filming ballots both before and after they’re machine processed. Live streaming ballots, which he hopes will increase transparency, necessitates an extra step before machine counting starts: a human review of ballots for extraneous — and possibly identifying — markings to ensure those are removed before being shown on screen.
At a training session at the Market Street elections office last week, Curtis spoke to a group of about a dozen newly hired poll closers, explaining their paid role at poll places, a space that’s usually run entirely by volunteers.
Speaking in simple terms, Curtis told poll closers that they’ll be sorting “good ballots and bad ballots.” The former will be sorted into groups of 50, placed in sealed bags and marked with their precinct number. The “bad ballots” will initially be placed in a “garbage pile,” Curtis said, before being placed in another bag with an “X” marked on it for separate sorting.
Terms such as “garbage” and “bad” might not have been the best ones to use, Curtis said after the training. He was referencing any ballots that have extraneous markings on them or those that can’t be put through the machines because they are damaged or otherwise not readable. Those will require further assessment by staff, and some may need to be duplicated in order to be properly read by the machines.
After Curtis’ initial explanation, some closers-in-training expressed uncertainty about the process. Additional explanations from other staff were needed as trainees struggled to understand what they’re counting: ballots, not votes.
They also learned about the different categories of ballots they’ll find at the polls on the evening of Election Day, which include ballots cast in person without envelopes, vote-by-mail ballots dropped at the precinct inside their sealed envelopes and provisional ballots that will require further verification before being counted.
Poll closers will count only those cast in person — also known as precinct ballots — on Election Day in order to separate them into those that can be livestreamed and those that can’t. They’ll begin the process of counting precinct ballots only after volunteer poll workers have documented a number of other ballot-related numbers, including the number of surrendered ballots and those cast provisionally.
Election staffer Michelle Tyson reminded trainees that all ballot handling should always be done alongside either another poll closer or a poll worker, a security process known in elections as “the rule of two.”
Curtis said he’d originally hoped poll closers would work in groups of two at every precinct but explained that he hasn’t yet been able to hire enough staff. In cases where only one poll closer is present, Curtis said, they will work with the poll inspector at the site.
But those poll inspectors, Tyson clarified, won’t be allowed to sort precinct ballots themselves or even touch them. “They’re just going to stand above you,” Tyson explained, and only in cases where there aren’t two poll closers.
The Shasta Elections Poll Training Manual is more ambiguous on the topic, noting first that poll closers will count and secure the precinct ballots before saying that poll workers should count the precinct ballots and enter the total on the ballot statement.
Once paired up, Tyson told trainees, the first step will be to inspect the ballots to find those that are torn, stained, bent or otherwise damaged along with those that have been marked with correction tape, white-out, or stickers, all of which, she said, could damage the tabulator.
Such ballots should be placed aside into a separate bag for further review at the elections office, she and Curtis noted, adding that ballots with any extraneous marking on either side should also be set aside, along with any ballots marked with pencil, or with ink colors other than blue or black.
“You’re not determining how they voted,” Tyson emphasized, as closers-in-training asked questions about how to review ballot markings, or lack thereof. “If they voted for nobody, that’s what they want.”
Closers will then place the unmarked and undamaged ballots into sealed bags in groups of 50. Since this is a two-card ballot, Curtis explained, if poll closers find an unaccompanied single ballot card, they should “marry it” to another single ballot card to create a full set that includes both ballot card A and ballot card B so the two move together through the system.
“It doesn’t matter whether they’re both from the same voter,” he said, noting that the A and B card can be from any two voters as long as they’re “married” into a cohesive pair for counting. It was a concept that threw many people off.
“You’re counting ballots, so it doesn’t matter whose ballot it is,” election staffer Marjorie Andrews explained in response to questions. “Once the ballots are received, they aren’t associated with individual voters; they’re just ballots that we count.”
Once poll closers have sorted ballot card pairs into bags of 50 and placed those bags into red security bags, they’ve done their primary work, Curtis said. They may also transport ballots to the polling place, according to the poll training manual, and they can assist with closing up the polling place. But their central mission of sorting and sealing precinct ballots to prepare them for live streaming at the election office will have been accomplished.
Curtis said while the central role of poll closers is pretty simple, they will need to “know how to do basically everything,” because they could be called upon for other roles during the election.
“Since they’re county employees,” Curtis said, “they’re now going to be considered experts, even if it’s the first time they did it.”
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Hypothetical whining! Why aren’t you whiners signed up to help in our elections to catch all these claimed efforts to manipulate our elections.
Nick Gardner
RF – Speaking of hypotheticals, how could you possibly know who is or isn’t volunteering? Answer, “you can’t”. As far as “whining” goes, it’s always projection with you guys. Your posts in support of Curtis & Co sound like the desperation of a dying breed.
Rick, you’re hilarious. 😆
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Pre-Curtis, there were plenty of people who volunteered. Volunteers who didn’t do it for financial gain, but because they felt it was their civic duty and they wanted to give back to their community.
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Volunteers with actual ethics and integrity who would have reported any fraud or malfeasance, because THEY ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT OUR DEMOCRACY AND COMMUNITY.
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But you election deniers bad mouthed them and the entire election process when there was absolutely no evidence or proof that massive election fraud was happening.
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And now you election deniers have been in the election department for a year now, and STILL haven’t managed to provide the slightest iota of fraud or wrong doing. You guys are never going to have a better chance to prove your claims than you do right now, and you have NOTHING.
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You guys have taken something that was actually working fairly and efficiently, and have mucked it all up for everybody else. And you wonder why people aren’t signing up to run it into the ground like you guys are doing?
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Gnight Ricky.
Who is this crazy person?? Mr. Curtis, you really are an idiot! The newly hired poll closers have much to learn in order to be such. There is too much to learn before election date in order to be bipartisin
knowledgable, literate with the ability to listen and communicate. The poll closers are a waste of tax dollars. This “last minute”, possibly out of code, process in the voting system for Shasta County.
You are truly a piece of work, Mr. Curtis. Please go home.
Wait a Dang Minute….Where’s the Secretary of State observers when we need them, before the election not after the election. Someone needs to stop this incompetent buffoon before he calls the Shasta County Sheriff and has the ballots confiscated, a la Riverside. This is serious, someone with gravitas needs to call the SoS and the CA Dept of Justice now and get them in the picture now, not after after the fiasco. Curtis is only hurting himself and his potential votes. I project he’ll get maybe 30%, unless he sorts his voters in only the ‘good’ pile. Mother Nature/Creator, help us all.
i AM NOT SURE HOW PEOPLE WHO DON’T TRUST THE PROCESS CAN THEMSELVES BE TRUSTED. Clint’s plans seem to be clouding the process with unnecessary steps, people and procedures. Ask any one who works the polls and they are likely to tell you that so called “Poll closers” are not needed so they are an extra layer of nonsense from people we have no reason to trust. Have these “closers” been screened for anything? Are they legal citizens? have they shown the proper I.D.? Have they themselves voted?
These ballots are being processed at voting locations, so why is Curtis looking for “those that are torn, stained, bent or otherwise damaged along with those that have been marked with correction tape, white-out, or stickers”! I have yet to go to a voting location and see anyone take any such items into the voting booth with them. This doesn’t seem like a safe solution but increases the ability to tamper with ballots. Additionally, Shasta is struggling with budgets and lawsuits against the county, but they found money to add 100 additional paid people to count ballots?? Sadly, typical waste of dollars that could be used elsewhere! Sadly, I envision chaos.
Cue the “Benny Hill Show” theme music.
Enough.
Selah
Carpetbagger Clint: “We need to do a bunch of ballot sorting before the ballots travel to the ROV office in bags separately marked “good” and “garbage.” The closers aren’t counting votes. They’re just sorting and putting the garbage in separate bags. Trust us, it’ll be fine.”
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The mind reels at the number of possible ways the sorting could be corrupted, including those “garbage” bags disappearing on the way to the ROV’s office.
As a former (once the Clint Curtis clown show began) poll worker, closing up the polling place was done by the poll workers as supervised by the Poll Inspector. Then the Poll Inspector carried the ballots to the election office, closely followed by one of the poll workers. The system worked and the chain of custody was unbroken. Now, Curtis is going to have outside, minimally trained individuals show up, wade through the ballots and then haul them down to the election office? Are they just going to drive up, unaccompanied? What about the “Rule of 2”? What was wrong with the prior system? Do I trust that these “closers” are there to just do their job, or maybe do some of them have election interference goals? Considering who he’s hired to run the election office, I don’t trust at all that this is on the up & up.
Also, before the Dominion machine contract was cancelled by a prior BOS, voters got instant feedback about the condition of their ballots. If the ballot was unreadable another could be issued on the spot and the voter got to vote right there. None of this culling out “bad” ballots to be gone through later.
Our ballots being in the hands of this group of ideological morons is very troubling. I once contacted the ROV(Kathy Darling) about concerns about my signature possibly being a different version than when I registered decades ago and she told me that if I had doubts then I should just add both signatures and in the case that my ballot was in question the ROV office would make all efforts to contact me before disallowing my ballot for any reason. Will Curtis and his MAGA team be equally determined to serve the people as Kathy Darling and Joanna Francescut have done? I doubt that.
The waters have been muddied and it’s not even Election Day yet. I have a problem with ANY ballot processing occurring before the ballots reach the office.
At my poll worker training, I asked about the new poll closers. I asked how many precincts there are, he said 53. I asked if he has additional 106 staff and he said yes, they’re county staff who volunteer. So now, it turns out he did *not* have the staff needed to implement the plan. What kind of manager conceives a plan, puts it in writing, trains on it, then finds out oops don’t have the staff to execute the plan? If he worked in the private sector, he’d be fired for incompetence. Luckily, there are many experienced poll inspectors (leaders at each precinct) who know the rule of two and will follow the laws and their training to ensure the rules are followed in spite of the ding dong at the top.
I’m not sure a county employee can “volunteer” on a day that is a work day they get paid for. I think it is a department of labor thing.
I don’t trust Clint and his crew to follow the law in this election. Research shows that California Elections Code §14420 and related regulations specifically contemplate precinct-level sorting and accounting procedures prior to the transport of ballots to the office for tabulation. BUT, the Secretary of State says
Precinct workers cannot unofficially “pre-count” election results before polls close.
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Ballots must remain secured with documented chain-of-custody procedures.
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Observers/watchers are allowed to observe many post-closing procedures.
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Any sorting must comply with county instructions and state regulations.
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Tampering, altering ballots, or trying to determine how a person voted is illegal
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I’m taking my ballot to the ROV office so I can watch them handle my ballot. I have NO trust in the poll closers at all.
Well, Annalise, you have half the facts right but unfortunately, the other half are very misleading so as usual all you’ve done is spread confusion whoops!
Actually, I attended a similar training! She was correct! But if you haven’t been to a training, you might not realize it.
After the problems with the poll workers training which I was dismissed from, replies to that article from some other people, who took poll worker training, reported that they were confused and a few said they may just skip it.
Can you clarify what Annalise got wrong here?
Mr Turner:
1. I’m not going to tell you how you keep giving yourself away, but you do. It’s very obvious to some people who you are, even though you post under another name.
2. What information in this article is misleading? Consider this a direct challenge for you to point out the misinformation.
3. The name that you chose to post under is just downright juvenile. We need adults to be working in the elections office, not someone who resorts to ‘yomama’.
Would you care to be specific about the alleged “misleading” reporting or do you prefer to simply spout accusations bereft of substance?
Gee what could possibly go wrong? I predict a big mess and even bigger excuses after 6/2.
Anyone else think that his whole process sounds fishy?
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We went from safe and secure, reliable elections to this nonsense that he’s pushing?
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Truly sad and very worrisome.
Ya, too many cooks in the kitchen. I guess Curtis chose “Hobbs & Friends Partisan Party Planners” to set things up.