I have received numerous calls and emails asking for information about the election. I wanted to take a minute to explain some procedures.
Many questions regarding if their ballot was counted and why does it not show in myvote. On election day if you voted in person, you stopped at the desk and our inspectors issued you a vote a number in our pollbook and you signed the poll book. Each hour we reconcile the numbers on the machine with the number in the book. If the voting machine says that 102 ballots have been entered the book needs to show that we issued 102 ballots. Every hour we were open those numbers matched and at the end of the night those numbers matched. When you entered your ballot in the machine your vote is scanned, a picture taken of both sides of the ballot and your ballot drops into the space below the machine. It drops in no certain order and when we open the voting machine, Ballots are everywhere and in no order Your vote is recoreded on an encrypted flash drive that can only be read by the County Clerks office. At the end of the night we pull all ballots from the machine and they are counted numerous times by a team of election inspectors to ensure that the number on the voting machine matches the exact number of ballots we have. We had 534 in-person voters on election day. All ballots are organized by voting wards. Once the vote and ballot count is reconciled the ballots are then placed in a sealed bag that has a serial number. The bag is signed off on by 5 election inspectors. Those bags and taken to the Court house where they are stored for 2 years. The entire process is open to the public to come in and watch.
For absentee ballots, we had 1216 ballot envelopes received. One of those ballot envelopes had no signature on the envelope and that ballot envelope was received the evening of Nov 2nd and the voter was out of state so could not be contacted. Another envelope was received that had only the instructions in the envelope but no ballot. So no ballot could be counted. 1,214 absentee ballots were entered into the voting machine and at the end of the night the same process happens. We counted, organized and sealed in a bag by ward, 1,214 Absentee ballots.
At the end of the night I delivered the two encrypted flash drives that also have serial numbers logged to the Town, to the Court House to be entered into the system and the counts are then posted to the Rock County website. Those counts on the County website matched to our tapes that print from the voting machines.
All ballots, inspectors statements, incident logs, signed pollbooks, voting machine tapes and any other documentation is sealed and securely stored in our safe and the following day all of that documentation that has been sealed and signed off on by the election inspectors is delivered to the Court House and checked in by the Clerks office.
Also other questions that have come up are people who registered to vote on election day do not see the registrations in myvote. You won’t until late next week. That infomation will be entered once the State has certified the election. Also you won’t see that you voted until late next week once the election is certified. Clerks actually have 45 days to get everything entered. While a Township has a small number of infomation to enter, it will still take me at least a full day to enter this info. Imagine what it takes for a city like Milwaukee, Madison or Green Bay. But I always start entering names of voters and election day registrations the week after the election.
So, if your ballot was taken by the voting machine, which they all were, your vote has been counted. If you were one of the two absentee ballots that were not counted that will show on myvote right now. If you have questions please let me know. Send an Email to [email protected] and I will answer as quickly as I can.
Thanks for everyone voting, it was are largest voting day ever in Harmony. Thanks again!!
Tim Tollefson
Clerk Town of Harmony