Provisional Ballots

Tuesday we were able to count the provisional ballots.  These are ballots that people could cast and then had to wait to be verified before they could be counted.  This ranges from people moving from county to county or precinct to precinct.  This also included name changes and such. 

State law requires that the ballots can not be opened and counted until 3:00 pm.  Why that time, I don't know.  We had 70 ballots to count and there is a certain process to go through.  First there were two independent observers to watch the count.  They were from the group Western Native Voice.  Then there were four others, two to tally the votes, one to read out the votes and the election administrator. 

My boss Sandy was included in this, she is an elected official and the election administrator wanted one involved in this process.  I was one of the tally markers.

We didn't get done until 5:45 pm.  I didn't know that I would be in on this process so had to call Gary and tell him that I would be late in picking him up and I wouldn't know what time we would be done.  He managed to get a ride home after waiting for half an hour in the store's parking lot.  He could have walked to the court house and picked up my car.

We got done and all of our numbers matched which was a good thing or else we would have had to do it all over again.  Tuesday was not a good day because I have class at 6:30pm.

This count did not change any outcomes of the races in this county.  Now the state is gearing up for the statewide recount on the Office of Public Instruction race.  This recount won't be done until after Thanksgiving.  The state will schedule this and then all counties will have to hand count each ballot.  That is 5,000 ballots here.