Valley poll workers make sure the count is correct

MAT-SU — If voting is the most sacred of American values, then dedicated election officials are the keepers of this faith.

As controversies home and abroad show, a few minor missteps can taint the whole public process. The legitimacy of elected officials is destroyed without the proper oversight and absolute secrecy.

In advance of today’s local elections, the Frontiersman found two people who voters in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough trust with their right of representational determination. As readers will soon see, their faith is well-placed in Shirley Mills and Mary Knutson.

Frontiersman: How long have you been working as election officials?

Mills: This is the first year I’ve done early voting, but I’ve been working elections for probably 10 years.

Knutson: I can’t tell you how many years I’ve been working in the election process. All my life. I started out as a gopher in my teens.

F: Why did you first sign up to help?

M: I used to work at the borough, and I knew they needed election officials. It’s a good thing to do for the community, plus it gives you a chance to get out and meet people. I feel like I’m doing something good and meeting people at the same time.

K: When I was in my teens, my mother was a county auditor in the Lower 48. That was her job, to run the elections. She just needed somebody that was a volunteer, I guess, so she volunteered me. I’ve just always done it. I can remember hand counting ballots in the basement of the old library 30-some-odd years ago until about 6 in the morning.

F: So what was the process like when you first started?

K: You marked (the ballot) and put them in, at that time we had metal boxes. At the end of the night, we dumped them all out and counted them by hand. You went at 6 in the morning and didn’t get done until they were all counted — up to 24 hours or more.

F: So what’s the process now? Once I mark my ballot, what happens to it then?

M: You get a ballot, and you get this folder. You put your ballot in there. Nobody can see your ballot, and you put it up to the machine. It scoots it right off there. There’s a tape in this machine. When we take it out at night, then it will tell us the vote tallies.

F: What time do you take the tape out of the machine?

K: 8 p.m. Right after the polls close.

F: Who do you report those numbers to?

K: The borough clerk’s office. They have several telephones set up with people on them. We don’t leave any messages. Then, we take the tape over there, and it’s gone through again over there.

F: So each polling place has its own vote counting machine?

K: Each precinct has a machine and it counts each vote as it goes in. … You can put it in upside-down, backwards, any way you want and it still counts it. Don’t ask me how.

F: How early do you start setting up the polls on election day?

M: It depends on the size of your precinct. Poles open at 7:00 a.m. Mine is small, so I start setting up around 6:30 a.m., but some people have to get there before 6:00. … We get our supplies on Friday, but we keep them locked up until Tuesday morning when we put them out at the polls. And not in the trunk of anyone’s care, either.

F: What about early voting? How does that process work?

K: With early voting, you put it in the ballot box. At night, they open up the ballot box and put them in a special envelop and send them to the borough.

M: They are put under lock and key there until after the election. Then, the Canvass Board is the one that verifies the ballots and makes sure it is a good legal vote.

K: They make sure no one votes twice, or anything like that.

M: But we’ve never had anything out here like that.

K: We had one woman here one year. She was real old, and she voted at the beginning of early voting. She just didn’t remember she had voted.

M: But all the early voting ballots are not counted until after the election. So, if you had two candidates that were very close in the race, that could make a difference.

K: They always have to get a certain percentage of the vote before they win, anyhow.

M: But sometimes, they are really not close. They can honestly say that the early voting ballots won’t make a difference.

K: Because after about the second day, they know how many early voting ballots there were.

F: So, you never see the votes on either the early or Election Day ballots?

M: Never.

F: About how many people does it take to staff a municipal election like this one?

K: There’s 34 precincts. Each precinct will have a chairperson and three to four workers, unless it’s a real small precinct. At the borough, there’s several more. It’s a big operation. Even just for one borough, it’s a very expensive process.

F: Election officials are paid then?

M: Yes, but not very much.

K: And we have training. Everybody has to go to training before every election. I don’t care if you’ve done it for a hundred years. … If you have any problems, you can call the borough clerk’s office. But if you’ve done it very long, you don’t have any problems.

F: And having done this for a long time, you have never had any problems like Florida did in 2000.

K: Oh, no. We have a saying: “We’re not Florida.”

F: Could something like that happen here?

K: Never. We don’t use (the punch card) method. Our machines are too precise. There’s no way that could happen. Everything is checked and rechecked.

M: They are all accounted for and they are kept secure.

K: Not even the janitors are allowed in this room.

F: Do you think the voting experience plays a part in whether someone will vote again?

M: I hope so.

F: Any last advice for people headed to the polls tomorrow?

K: Please vote! You can’t gripe if you don’t vote.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.