Early Voting Summary

By a Collin County Early Voting Alternate Judge (D)

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is heavier than in the first week of voting. The turnout pattern for 2008 did not exactly follow the 2004 turnout pattern voting. Week one of 2008 had a slightly higher percentage of daily turnout, so early voting was a bit more front loaded in 2008 as compared to the 2004 turnout pattern. (See daily turnout table below)

Collin County had an impressive 49.9% early voting turnout of the 424,500+ registered voters in 2008, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website. In the November 2004 election 246,617 (66.8%) of the 369,412 register voters cast a ballot in that presidential election, with 150,001, or 40.6% of 2004 registered voters, voting early in that presidential election year.

Date Of Election Total Reg. Voters Total Votes Cast Total Turnout % of Reg Voters Early Votes Cast Early Vote % of Reg Voters Nov-00 300,426 177,673 59.1% 75,244 25.0% Nov-04 369,412 246,617 66.8% 150,001 40.6% Mar-08 380,570 124,614 32.7% 59,033 15.5% Nov-08 424,500 356,580 84.0% 211,637 49.9%

October Early Voting 2004 Daily Early Turnout 2008 Daily Early Turnout Early Vote Day Daily Hours of Voting Actual Daily Vote Totals Daily % of Total Early Turnout Daily Early Vote Turnout Daily % of Total Early Vote Mon 9 9,137 6.09% 13,900 6.50% Tue 9 9,491 6.33% 15,356 7.30% Wed 9 9,257 6.17% 15,563 7.40% Thu 9 9,090 6.06% 14,734 7.01% Fri 9 10,293 6.86% 17,305 8.23% Sat 12 15,102 10.07% 19,043 9.06% Sun 5 5,524 3.68% 8,188 3.89% Mon 12 13,739 9.16% 18,126 8.62% Tue 12 15,326 10.22% 19,227 9.14% Wed 12 15,621 10.41% 21,780 10.36% Thu 12 16,606 11.07% 23,074 10.97% Fri 12 20,815 13.88% 25,341 11.97% Total 150,001 100% 211,637 100% Final Numbers for 2008 Early Voting

A new CBS News national poll of likely voters (that includes those who've already voted plus likely voters) released on November 1st finds that Obama/Biden leads McCain/Palin by 13 points, 54 percent to 41 percent. That margin reflects an increase of two points in the Obama-Biden ticket's lead from a CBS News/New York Times poll released Thursday October 30th. Nationally, about one in five voters say they have already cast their vote, either in person or through the mail, and these early voters prefer the Democratic ticket by an even greater margin. Obama leads among early voters, who have already cast their ballot, 57 percent to 38 percent, a nineteen point advantage.

Matching the names of people who voted in the 2008 Democratic primary vs. the Republican primary and the newly registered voters with the names of people who voted early through October 30th, we find that the Collin County voting pattern likely follows the national voting sentiment captured in the CBS News Poll.

Democratic 53,263 27.5% Republican 38,082 19.6% New Reg. 102,613 52.9%

The last day of early voting, October 31st, was the biggest early voting day of all, but the official data is not yet available on the Texas Secretary of State's website or from the county elections office. The "New Reg" number in the above table includes all the voters newly registered since the March 4th primary election, therefore party affiliation can not be determined. The general assumption is that a sizable portion of the newly registered voters voted for Obama/Biden.

The early voting experience was challenging for voters and election workers alike this year. The voter registration software application package, that Collin County purchased from Votec Corp. earlier this year and used for the first time in this election to look up voters in the main registration database, malfunctioned from the start.

Newly registered voters who presented their brand new orange voter's registration cards to election clerks at check-in could not be found by the by the "VoteSafe" client part of the Votec application being used by election workers to qualify voters at the polling place. The Carpenter Park Recreation Center Early Voting Location Judge (R) and Alternate Judge (D) quickly understood implications of the software malfunction early on the first day of early voting.

As a work-around solution, the Carpenter Park Recreation Center Alternate Judge phoned the County Elections Office Voter Lookup Hot Line to manually qualify each voter that VoteSafe failed to automatically qualify.

The voter's name and registration certification number was then manually written on the combination signature form and also separately written on a "tally" list so the elections office could later mark the voter's record as "voted." Fortunately, these manually qualified Carpenter Park voters experienced only minor delay of a few minutes in the check-in process. By the close of early voting on October 31 several hundred names had been written on the Carpenter Park "tally" list as "manually" qualified voters.

Unfortunately, Judges and Alternate Judges at a few early voting locations did not immediately understand that the failed voter qualification lookups were due to software malfunction. These Judges incorrectly required otherwise qualified voters to go through the time consuming process of completing a "provisional ballot" form. Voters at other locations were turned away and told to return later.

By the middle of the first week of early voting Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Election Administrator, had instructed all the early voting Judges that voters should not be turned away or told to fill out provision ballots when a voter's registration could be verified by calling the Elections Office Voter Lookup Hot Line.

Few of the new voters who filled out their voter registration cards in late September and early October, who were added to the registration database during October, could be qualified by election clerks through the normal VoteSafe automated check-in process. Thousands of recently updated existing voter registration records and newly added voter registration records in the county's main elections database could not be accessed by the "VoteSafe" application client.

Also read Reports detail Collin County Early Voting problems at the Collin Co. observer.

Second Week Of Early Voting

Updated November 1, 2008

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is heavier than in the first week of voting. The turnout pattern for 2008 did not exactly follow the 2004 turnout pattern voting. Week one of 2008 had a slightly higher percentage of daily turnout, so early voting was a bit more front loaded in 2008 as compared to the 2004 turnout pattern. (See daily turnout table below)

Collin County had an impressive 49.5% early voting turnout of the 424,000+ registered voters in 2008, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website. In the November 2004 election 246,617 (66.8%) of the 369,412 register voters cast a ballot in that presidential election, with 150,001, or 40.6% of 2004 registered voters, voting early in that presidential election year.

Date Of Election Total Reg. Voters Total Votes Cast Total Turnout % of Reg Voters Early Votes Cast Early Vote % of Reg Voters Nov-00 300,426 177,673 59.1% 75,244 25.0% Nov-04 369,412 246,617 66.8% 150,001 40.6% Mar-08 380,570 124,614 32.7% 59,033 15.5% Nov-08 424,500 356,580 84.0% 210,128 49.5%

Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Elections Administrator, has told election workers it is possible that 356,580 (84%) of the 424,000+ registered voters could turnout to vote in the 2008 election. If Rowe's prediction is accurate, it is possible that approximately 146,453 people across Collin County remain poised to vote in their locally polling locations on November 4th. As a rough rule of thumb, each of the 129 Collin County polling locations could see as many as approximately 1,100 to 1,200 voters on Election Day.

		2004 Nov. Election Daily Early Turnout		2008 Nov. Election Daily Early Turnout
Early Vote Day	Daily Hours of Voting	Actual Daily Vote Totals	Daily % of Total Early Turnout	Daily Early Vote Turnout	Daily % of Total Early Vote
Mon	9	9,137	6.09%	13,900	6.5%
Tue	9	9,491	6.33%	15,356	7.30%
Wed	9	9,257	6.17%	15,563	7.40%
Thu	9	9,090	6.06%	14,734	7.01%
Fri	9	10,293	6.86%	17,305	8.23%
Sat	12	15,102	10.07%	19,043	9.06%
Sun	5	5,524	3.68%	8,188	3.89%
Mon	12	13,739	9.16%	18,126	8.62%
Tue	12	15,326	10.22%	19,227	9.14%
Wed	12	15,621	10.41%	21,780	10.36%
Thu	12	16,606	11.07%	23,074	10.97%
Fri	12	20,815	13.88%	24,000*	11.41%*
Total		150,001	100%	210,296*	100%
* - Estimated

Early Voting Experience Challenging For New Voters And Election Workers Alike

The early voting experience has been challenging for voters and early voting election workers alike this year. In a Dallas Morning News report headlined, "Early voters report obstacles at polls," the newspaper says, "At another Collin County station, voters whose names were not listed in the state's new electronic voter database – even some with registration cards – were turned away and told to come back later."

Actually, none of the voters who turned in a new voter registration registration application or change of information form after some point in mid September can not be found by Collin County's new ePollBook system being used by elections clerks to qualify voters when they show up to vote.

This is what went wrong and why election clerks have been calling the election office voter look up hot line so often to manually qualify and check in so many properly registered voters.

The new VoteSafe ePollBook election software package that Collin County recently purchased from the San Diego based election management application software vendor Votec, and is using for the first time in this election to look up voters, works much differently from the old election software the county has used to qualify and check-in voters for several prior years.

The old election software application could access the most current registration data, but the new VoteSafe application can only access an old copy of the registration data created some weeks before the start of early voting.

This year many thousands of new voter registration applications postmarked from September through the October 4th registration cutoff date had yet to be processed when the registrar's master voter registration database was copied to load onto the VoteSafe ePollBook check-in laptops. Election clerks are using those laptops, loaded with the newly purchased VoteSafe election software and old registration data, to check-in voters for the November 4, 2008 election early voting period.

Almost all of the voter registration applications postmarked from September through the October 4th had actually been processed and entered into the registrar's master voter registration database by the first day of early voting. However, election clerks using the new VoteSafe ePollBook software application to check-in voters can see only an old copy of registration information that, by the start of early voting, was already several weeks old.

So, early voting election clerks can not use the check-in computers to directly qualify, perhaps, up to 20,000 newly registered voters.

For these newly minted voters the election the Judge, Alternate Judge or designated "special help" clerk must call the "County Elections Office Voter Look Up Phone Hot Line." Voter ID information is verbally repeated to hot line help clerks who then access the master voter registration database to verbally qualify each of the new voters. The voter's name, registration certification number and other information must then be manually written on the election combination signature form and also again separately written on a "tally" list by the Judge, Alternate Judge or designated clerk so the elections office can later mark the voter's master record as "voted." During the ten days of early voting so far, many thousands of new voters across Collin County have been "manually" qualified to vote using this procedure.

At least one Election Judge and Alternate Judge team in charge of the Carpenter Park Recreation Center Early Voting Location immediately realized the "voter not found" problem was due to ePollBook software issues and started calling the Collin County election office voter look up hot line to manually qualify voters from the first hour of early voting.

Unfortunately, Judges and Alternate Judges at most other early voting locations incorrectly told voters presenting a newly issued orange voter registration card, which VoteSafe could not qualify, that they could not vote or that they must go through the time consuming process of completing a "provisional ballot."

These Election Judges had no idea that the newly purchased VoteSafe check in software functioned far differently from the software they had used for several years to qualify and check in voters. Election Judges expected to find a current voter registration record via VoteSafe for anyone presenting a registration card, even for any just issued cards, because that is the way the process had always worked in the past.

When VoteSafe returned "Not Found" on people presenting new registration cards with, what most Judges likely thought were, usually high registration serial numbers during the first days of early voting, some Judges possibly considered that some kind of voter fraud was being perpetrated -- After all, conservative talk radio commentators have been warning for weeks that Democrats, aided by ACORN, are plotting to steal the 2008 election and that liberal voter fraud is rampant. The lion's share of newly registered voters are likely planning to vote for Democratic candidates.

Still, it is difficult to fault Election Judges for initially being suspicious of these "not found" registration records, even for people presenting a valid registration card, because they were never told about the radical change in software function and election procedure with the adoption of the VoteSafe application.

By the middle of the first week of early voting Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Election Administrator, had instructed all the early voting Judges that voters should not be turned away or told to fill out provisional ballots when a new voter's registration can be verified by calling the Elections Office Voter Look Up Hot Line.

How does this new VoteSafe election software application work?

As the picture shows there are two main component assembles of the "VoteSafe" ePollBook application system. One component assembly of this distributed ePollBook application system is installed on laptop computers used at the polling locations to look up and qualify voters during voter check-in.

The Votesafe configuration on each of these voter check-in laptops includes a copy of the master voter registration database that, by the start of early voting, was signifigantly out of date.

The Votesafe software running on each voter check-in laptop uses its own local copy of the voter registration database to look up and qualify voters to receive a ballot.

Part of the look up information returned to the election clerk, for each qualified voter, is the particular "ballot style" that each voter must be given to vote. (Collin County has 52 unique ballot styles for this election.) Each voter qualified by the clerk to receive a ballot is then marked as 'Has Voted' in the local registration file copy installed on the check-in laptop used by that particular clerk. The laptop prints a label containing the voter's registration serial number and other information. The clerk affixes the label to the combination signature, which the voter then signs. After this check-in procedure is complete the voter is given a ballot card and allowed to mark the ballot.

The other part of the distributed VoteSafe application system runs on the county's election office elections server. This part of the VoteSafe application periodically connects, via a secure Internet connection, with each voter check-in laptop used at each early voting polling location to upload the names of people who are marked as 'Has Voted' in the laptop's registration data file.

New voter registration records added and old records that are updated in the registrar's master voter registration database after it was copied, to be installed on each of the check-in laptops, does not synchronize down to the local check-in laptops laptop computers.

According to data posted on the Texas Secretary of State and Collin County Elections Office websites approximately 20,000 new voters registered to vote in Collin County between March 2008 and September 2, 2008 boosting the total number of registered voters to 403,465. Voter registration drives continued across the county until the October 6th registration cutoff date and a small mountain voter applications postmarked up to October 6th date continued to flow into the county registrar's office every day for several days after the cutoff date. The Collin County master voter registration database contained approximately 408,000 registered voters by Oct 1, 2008, with a five or six day backlog of registration applications still waiting to be processed. The final tally of registered voters will be in the neighborhood of 424, 000 people.

We can, then, conclude that approximately 20,000 new voter registration records have been added to the registrar's master registration data base since the data was copied to be loaded into each of the local Votesafe ePollBook check-in laptops. It is these newly added and update voter records that are not directly available to election clerks through the Votesafe ePollBook system. Election clerks must qualify these voters by calling the Elections Office Voter Look Up Hot Line and then hand write their information on the signature combination form. This results in additional delays for voters who must wait in a special 'Hot Line' lookup voter line after first waiting in the regular check-in line.

Big Texas Turnout In First Week Of Early Voting

"It's hard work working hard" and poll workers across Collin County, and all of Texas, have been working hard to accommodate the crush of early voters. So far, early voting totals are far out pacing the daily early turnout totals of the 2004 presidential election.

More than 1.1 million Texans cast ballots in the 15 most populous counties through Thursday, compared with 655,265 in the top 15 counties four years ago, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website.

Word has reached some early polling locations that after church services on Sunday many parishioners are planning to go directly to early voting locations as part of a voter mobilization project called "Super Sunday."

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is much heavier than in the first week of voting. The table below uses 2004 daily early voting numbers, from the Texas SOS website, and 2008 actual week one turnout numbers to project voting turnout numbers that Collin County election workers might expect for the second week of early voting.

If the 2004 early voting pattern holds for 2008, then Collin Collin might see a 57% turnout, of the 425,000+ registered voters, for early voting. The 57% early turnout number is a "WAG" but this is the number required to make the 2004 voting pattern projection produce numbers close to the actual 2008 early voting numbers so far reported. I don't know - call me crazy...

		2004 Nov. Election Daily Early Voting Turnout		2008 Nov. Election Daily Early Voting Projection based on 57% Early Turnout Using 2004 Daily Voting Patterns
Early Vote Day	Daily Hours of Voting	Actual Daily Vote Totals	Actual Daily % of Total Early Vote	Actual Daily Early Vote Total Turnout	Projection of Daily Early Vote Total Turnout
Mon	9	9,137	6.09%	13,900	14,756
Tue	9	9,491	6.33%	15,356	15,328
Wed	9	9,257	6.17%	15,563	14,950
Thu	9	9,090	6.06%	14,734	14,680
Fri	9	10,293	6.86%		16,623
Sat	12	15,102	10.07%		24,390
Sun	5	5,524	3.68%		8,921
Mon	12	13,739	9.16%		24,751
Tue	12	15,326	10.22%		25,228
Wed	12	15,621	10.41%		26,819
Thu	12	16,606	11.07%		27,289
Fri	12	20,815	13.88%		33,616
Total		150,001	100%	59,553	242,250