Noon update from Hillsborough elections supervisor
November 4, 2008 at 11:19 am by Wayne GarciaThis from Buddy Johnson’s office at 12:14 p.m. A font of detailed information it is not:
Election Day Report
Hillsborough County- The Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) office announces a busy but smooth morning at polling locations around the County. While lines have been reported at a number of locations, wait times have been reasonable and voting is proceeding at every polling location.
The Elections Office anticipated a large turnout and pre-planned for all conceivable issues that might arise with an election of this size. The SOE has experienced minor issues, all of which have been promptly resolved. Precinct Election Officials (PEO’s) have been well-trained to resolve issues at the polls and are knowledgeable of the proper procedural response to ensure a smooth voting process. The Elections Office has an extensive telephone support team designed to facilitate this process.
In the event of an optical scanner malfunction, the Supervisor of Elections office has 15 roving technical support crews to speedily resolve any equipment problems. When confronted with technical problems, all PEO’s have been trained on back-up procedures to ensure that voting can continue uninterrupted until the technical crew arrives. In the event of a machine malfunction, the protocol is to place the paper ballots in the emergency ballot bin. After the polls close, those ballots will be removed by two PEO’s of different political party affiliation and placed in a secure case. Those ballots are then scanned into a fully-functioning optical scan voting machine to be tabulated after the polls close.
Links to all our Election Day coverage here.
