Barn Quilt

 

Got a quick call from the Town Clerk Chris.  She received a phone call from a lady who introduced herself as Stephanie (wasn't a local number) who wanted to let the clerk know election ballots can be hand counted.  In the interest of fair elections, did we do that?  Chris, it turns out, is way, way nicer than I am.  She said we didn't but that our town had two Chief Inspectors, both w/ years of experience, so she had no concerns about our elections being fair.  The caller started talking about how machines could be manipulated (no details or facts) but Chris suggested the caller should be taking her concerns to the County Clerk.  The caller became irate then stating that the County Clerk wouldn't listen to reason.  So, Chris wanted to give me a 'heads up' in case the lady called me too.  Probably a good thing - if the lady does call me I'll try my best not to call her a nincompoop (or some other synonym).  I can't promise though.   Our tabulator did it's job again this last election and caught some people who had mistakingly voted for too many people for an office or across party lines.  Those people were able to fix their ballots before they left the town hall.  If we had handcounted them at the end of the night, those votes could not be counted at all.  Chris said the County Clerk had also sent out a list of errors made on election paperwork returned from all of the different municipalities in the county.  I asked Chris if she would forward it to me.   I read through the e-mail.  We had done everything correctly on the list until I got to the last line.  There it was: "Make sure seal document records are completely filled out."  That's a future promise I can make.