Only you can prevent overvotes

Flathead voters, let’s talk. 

As a member of a resolution board that worked the last federal general election, I have pointers.

To vote, fill in the circle. Don’t circle the circle. Don’t make a little stab at it. Don’t make a check mark, no matter how fancy. Don’t get peanut butter on your ballot. 

Don’t pick more than one candidate in a race where only one may be selected. The resulting “overvote” vaults your efforts to a labor-intensive level of scrutiny. The tabulator kicks out the ballot as uncountable, and it comes to the resolution board: a three-person team tasked with determining the intent of the voter, which then re-marks a new ballot with the board’s determination along with the voter’s other choices. 

When I decided to volunteer for the election, I trained as an election judge. Just when I started to worry about having to ask people to take off, or turn inside out, any issue- or candidate-oriented apparel that could be construed as electioneering, I was assigned to the resolution board. 

Relief. I’d be more behind the scenes but still useful. 

The three teams doing resolution work on Nov. 5 geared up as polls closed, and finished at 5 a.m. We ranged from retirees to civic cheerleaders, and an equipment installer with a serious cellphone twitch to the Flathead County administrator, who had a boss on the ballot.  

Mostly we re-marked fresh ballots when the original ones couldn’t be counted as received.  

One person in the team would call out the voter’s choices, one would re-mark a new ballot, and the third kept a log of the ballots and replacements.  

Where voters were consistent, say, with check marks, we understood what they wanted. We would re-mark a ballot by filling in the circles. 

Sometimes it wasn’t clear what the voter intended. If the team couldn’t agree, a new ballot was resubmitted with that race unmarked so at least the voter’s other choices could be counted. 

My least favorite, and common, kind of ballot that came to us were ones where the voter overvoted by voting for the same candidates twice. They filled in the ovals next to their chosen candidates. Then they filled in those same candidate names in the spaces for write-ins.  

Please don’t do that. The candidate names are typed there so you don’t have to write them. When you write them in as well as vote for them, the tabulator does not count these votes as two or weight them more heavily or smile at the enthusiasm. No. The tabulator kicks them out to three bleary eyed people who have to start over with a new ballot and mark your choices all over again.  

Much as I love democracy, it made me grumpy, especially at 3 a.m. It also made me wonder at many Americans’ ability to read directions, and our no-accountability anything-goes era.  

Illiteracy among U.S. adults stands at 21%, according to the National Literacy Institute. Maybe that explains it but makes me no less grumpy.  

On the other hand, about 200 people attended the Northwest Montana Book Festival last weekend. Hopefully the reading trend continues. 

Margaret E. Davis, executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum, can be reached at mdavis@dailyinterlake.com.