Missoula County opposes HB 196: Revise election laws related to the counting of votes, as amended, up for second reading on the House floor this afternoon. This bill all but ensures election staff will count ballots for upwards of 36 hours straight without sleeping, which greatly increases the chances of human error. This bill would also lead to higher staff turnover and issues recruiting judges, as fewer people would be willing to work under such conditions.
While we appreciate the efforts to find workable amendments, the language in this bill around if elections offices can start their counting the Monday before an election remains unclear. And although the bill now takes into account resolution and provisional ballots, Missoula County regularly has close to 2,000 resolution ballots in a large federal election, and not resolving the resolution ballots until the Monday following the election could have the potential to drastically change the outcome of a close election, which defeats the intent of this bill.
Lastly, the penalty and requirement to upload results on a specified timeline creates unnecessary stress on already-exhausted elections staff on election day. For example, in the last election, Missoula County made a simple administrative error when compiling the results, which delayed the upload to the Secretary of State’s Office reporting software by a few hours. If this would have happened under this bill, Missoula County’s Elections Office would have had to make the decision of facing the penalty or providing results that they knew were inaccurate.
Missoula County opposes, as amended, HB 196: Revise election laws related to the counting of votes, up for second reading on the House floor this afternoon. Though the amendments to this bill address the ballot count on the Monday before the election and will likely contribute to a shorter tabulation time in all, eight hours on Monday and then potentially 24 hours on the Tuesday of the election will still be a concern for staffing, since it will be difficult to recruit anyone for the shift from midnight to 8 a.m., and these long hours still greatly increase the chance of human error.
Also, the language on page two, line two means votes would be released after all voters in the County have completed voting. This means that Missoula County would likely have to delay initial results release, which usually happens at 8 p.m., until we have confirmed that all polling places and late registrant voters have voted. This means results would not be posted until 9 or 10 p.m.
While we appreciate the efforts to find workable amendments, this bill still does not improve the accuracy of the elections process or timeliness of the results.
Representatives,
ReplyDeleteMissoula County opposes HB 196: Revise election laws related to the counting of votes, as amended, up for second reading on the House floor this afternoon. This bill all but ensures election staff will count ballots for upwards of 36 hours straight without sleeping, which greatly increases the chances of human error. This bill would also lead to higher staff turnover and issues recruiting judges, as fewer people would be willing to work under such conditions.
While we appreciate the efforts to find workable amendments, the language in this bill around if elections offices can start their counting the Monday before an election remains unclear. And although the bill now takes into account resolution and provisional ballots, Missoula County regularly has close to 2,000 resolution ballots in a large federal election, and not resolving the resolution ballots until the Monday following the election could have the potential to drastically change the outcome of a close election, which defeats the intent of this bill.
Lastly, the penalty and requirement to upload results on a specified timeline creates unnecessary stress on already-exhausted elections staff on election day. For example, in the last election, Missoula County made a simple administrative error when compiling the results, which delayed the upload to the Secretary of State’s Office reporting software by a few hours. If this would have happened under this bill, Missoula County’s Elections Office would have had to make the decision of facing the penalty or providing results that they knew were inaccurate.
Please oppose HB 196.
Representatives,
ReplyDeleteMissoula County opposes, as amended, HB 196: Revise election laws related to the counting of votes, up for second reading on the House floor this afternoon. Though the amendments to this bill address the ballot count on the Monday before the election and will likely contribute to a shorter tabulation time in all, eight hours on Monday and then potentially 24 hours on the Tuesday of the election will still be a concern for staffing, since it will be difficult to recruit anyone for the shift from midnight to 8 a.m., and these long hours still greatly increase the chance of human error.
Also, the language on page two, line two means votes would be released after all voters in the County have completed voting. This means that Missoula County would likely have to delay initial results release, which usually happens at 8 p.m., until we have confirmed that all polling places and late registrant voters have voted. This means results would not be posted until 9 or 10 p.m.
While we appreciate the efforts to find workable amendments, this bill still does not improve the accuracy of the elections process or timeliness of the results.
Please oppose HB 196.