Barn Quilt

The County Clerk conducts a Board of Canvass (BofC) a few days after each election.  While each municipality calls in their election results the night of the election, it is only after the Board of Canvass that the county certifies the count as correct to the state.  I realized last year, from some things the County Clerk had said in training,  that what I thought they did at the BofC wasn't what they did.  I figured this election would be a good one to observe the canvass since it would probably be short/straight forward.  Like most county meetings, it is open to observers, and I arrived promptly this morning w/ coffee in hand.  The County Clerk and two aides started going through each of the 33 municipalities paperwork.  They checked that all of the paperwork was there and completely filled out.  That the numbers called in to the clerk matched what they had on their tally sheets.  Also that at least three election workers signed each document.   There were more mistakes in paperwork than I expected.    I know for a fact that each municipality used to be perfect/practically perfect in their election paperwork.  From the comments made at the BofC I am assuming a turnover in municipality clerks is the reason for this new level of sloppiness.  No issue found today changed the tally counts though the County Clerk made notes of issues for each municipality.  I knew the municipality of the Town of Thornapple was still hand-counting ballots because they believe the tabulators are dishonestly 'fixed'.  (Interesting note: they are the only municipality that tossed out a valid ballot because they had one more ballot than voters - an error the tabulator could alert them to while the problem was still resolvable.)   What surprised me is another three municipalities hand-counted or partially hand-counted their ballots also.  Two municipalities used their tabulator and then turned around and hand-counted them after the election (in both cases the tally came out the same.)  Finally, two hours later, the ballot bags were on their way to a County Court House vault, the paperwork to another vault, a certification sent to the state, and I had an appreciation for what the BofC does and requires.