Notes on candidate briefing

{Look for a video coming soon...}

Why a hand count?
Our machines cannot produce full results for RCV election.
Raw numbers for choices only – not whose choices.
Machines can’t account for RCV- specific errors (i.e. skipped columns). Must be done by hand.
Do not make too much of election night results.
If your total first choice votes from the election night count is over the threshold based on total first choice votes, you may have won but we still need to account for voter mistakes. (That process could add more first choice votes, increasing the threshold.)

What are we counting?
All of the city’s ballots. Expected turnout at least 70,000 and potentially greater.
Greater turnout = longer time to count

Where are we conducting the count and who will be doing the counting?
Elections Warehouse: 723 Harding St NE.
Entire elections department plus over 100 Election Judges every shift.

When are we counting and when will we finish?
We now have a process that will allow us to finish the count on or before December 22nd.  Results for most races come earlier than that.
Winners of races and round by round results released as soon as the count for that race is complete.
Random Ward order. Park district results as constituent precincts counted (according to random ward order). City-wide last.
Rule of thumb: Counting an entire ward will take about 3 days.
We will count six days per week, Monday through Saturday beginning November 4, the day after the election, until we’re done. Each day will have a full eight-hour shift running 8am to 4:30pm or noon to 8:30pm. (We are hoping to take Sundays off as well as Thanksgiving Th, F, Sa.)
49 days – 10 days off = 39 days. Down from our previous estimate of potentially 100+ days.

How are we counting and how has the process improved to get the time down?
Divorcing the data from the ballots so we are not limited to counting one race at a time.
Scalable so if we fall behind, we can just add more EJ teams.
Process:
Counting sorting teams work with one precinct at a time and sort into all combos for a race and record how many.
Do this five times (once per race) for each ballot.
Then they start on next precinct. MEANWHILE…
The information they recorded is combined with information recorded from ballots from all the other precincts in the ward/district to produce the results for the race.
This means we can produce results for one race WHILE sorting and counting for another race or district is going on and we can produce results for multiple races in the same district simultaneously. Faster.
There are checks at every step to cut negate errors and catch them when they happen.
Two person teams
Party balance
Reconciliation

What kinds of results are there and why are they different?
Election night machine results don’t tell the whole story -- just raw numbers.
Ballot data – how every ballot in the city was marked

Whose results will be produced when?
The order that we will assign precincts to counting teams will be determined by lots. We will draw lots for wards. First ward on the list will have all its precincts assigned first and so on.
By doing the counting in chunks by ward we can release as many race results as possible as early as possible.
CM -> Park Dist -> City-wide at the end
Rule of thumb: three days per ward. ROUGHLY.

Where can we find out results?
Election night machine results released on the web on election night.
Round by round race results with winners released on the web as soon as we have them.
City-wide ballot data released at the end when it is complete.
We will also be posting daily progress reports on numbers of precincts completed and which districts are complete on the website.