Agenda - Council - 02/22/1983 - Laserfiche WebLink

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COUNTY OF ANOKA- Accounting and- Central Services Department Accounting-Systems-Programming - EDP Operations-Purchasing COURTHOUSE ANOKA, MINNESOTA 55303 612-42-1-4760 November b,, 1982 MEMO TO: Elaine Voss FROM: Jim Stanton~ Systems Analyst SUBJECT: Timeliness of Vote Counting The following are my observations regarding the computer vote tallying process for this last general election: The computer equipment performed beautifully, better than during the Primary. We had no system hardware or software problems and the card reader, which is the "weak link" of the tallying process, tabulated an estimated 100,000 ballot cards (including a number of precinct reruns due primarily to miscounting by the precinct election judges) in six hours. This is a rate of approximately 300 ballot cards per minute for the night. Only one precinct had to be re-run due to a card reader error - versus 12 precincts that had to be re-run (some of them several times) due to inaccurate manual counting by the election judges.' Total. time spent cleaning and adjusting the card reader was an estimated 15 minutes for the night. The election night staff in the computer room also performed beautifully. The operation was remarkably smooth considering the usual problems of dealing with discrepancies in manual and computer tallies and finding and remaking mis-punched or damaged ballot cards. While there were twice as many votes cast in the general election as versus the Primary, it did not take us twice as long to count them. I noted that as of I:00 A.M. we had counted $1~000 ballots compared to 38,000 at the same time for the Primary. The election judges did a remarkably good job considering the very heavy voter turn-out (approximately 8b,% for the County, 99+% for some precincts). The vast majority - I would say approximately 80% - entered the computer room with their manual tallies correct and all their ballot cards in computer-readable condition. Most of the incorrect manual tallies were only off by one ballot, often one ballot out of 1~;00-I800 cast in a precinct. An inordinate amount of time was, however, spent on four precincts that had larger discrepancies in the computer vs. manual count. These discrepancies were traced to ballots that were not included in the computer-tally run because they had been misplaced by the judges. Affirmative Action / Eaual Opportunity Employer