The more I learn about how local governments conduct our elections, the harder it is to credit accusations of election fraud.
My wife has worked at the polls in every election, everywhere we have lived, for many years. So I know something about the painstaking measures poll workers take to ensure that votes are cast and counted fairly and accurately.
I saw, firsthand, the same kind of care when I served temporarily on the Benzie County Board of Canvassers, which reviews the voting records that the poll workers send from the precincts. The county Democratic and Republican parties each nominate two board members, who serve staggered four-year terms. Since one of the two Democratic members would be out-of-town on the day after the election, when the board meets, the Benzie County Democrats offered me as a substitute, and I was sworn in for the day.
We met in the Benzie County Council Chamber, ably assisted by the county clerk, attended by a county bailiff, and with a few onlookers, who came — one said — just to see how things were done.
The Board of Canvassers doesn’t see any ballots. It reviews the Statement of Votes and the Poll Book from each precinct to doublecheck the information they contain and make sure it is consistent.
A Statement of Votes includes the computer vote tabulation; information on write-in votes, supplied by the poll workers; the numbers of the seals on the precinct’s ballot containers and a certificate signed by poll workers that all this is in good order.
In the poll book, poll workers document who votes in their precincts, including cases in which a damaged ballot was replaced or instances when poll workers challenged a voter — for instance, if their registration is in question — and how the poll workers resolved any challenges.
I saw no sign of partisanship among the board members.
They often turned to each other, across party lines, to confirm proper procedure and address any issues that arose. The county clerk apparently knows every detail of the procedure by heart. When we found some entries in poll books we didn’t quite understand, the clerk immediately tracked down the responsible poll workers by phone to get clarification.
We started at 9 a.m. and, since it was a short ballot, we finished our work in mid-afternoon. As we reviewed the last Statement of Vote and Poll Book, I looked around for my coat, thinking we were finished. The clerk would now issue the Certificate of Election, announcing the election results.
But the board still had to inspect the containers, now empty, that had been used to transport the election materials. Our job was to ensure the containers — mostly heavy canvas — were ready for the next election. By this time, we were a well-oiled bipartisan machine. We formed an assembly line, and each board member inspected each container from each precinct, looking for gaps through which anything could be inserted or removed, and making sure each one could be tightly sealed and locked.
We protected the approved containers by sealing each one with a cable zip fastener and affixing a dated tag, which we all signed.
All this might look like unwieldy bureaucracy to some people. But it should reassure them that their votes are secure. As one of my Republican colleagues said, anyone who believes that people can commit vote fraud should try being a poll worker or serving on a canvassing board (which includes becoming familiar with the 88-page Procedures and Duties of the Boards of Canvassers).
If you’re interested, contact your county clerk or go to Michigan.gov/PollWorker to find out about working at the polls, or contact your county political party office and let them know you’re available to serve on the Board of Canvassers when there is a vacancy.