Elections Officials: Nov. 2 Means Long Hours, Unpredictable Variables

Some county employees working the elections have been at Elections Central downtown since 6a.m. – and their day could drag on past midnight depending on how fast the judges for each precinct report back with their results.

“Back in 2008, I stayed here past midnight waiting for one precinct to get their results in,” said one Elections Department worker. He said that even though the polls close at 7 p.m. on the dot throughout the county, many variables remain that could unpredictably delay the counting process.

“Sometimes it’s distance, sometimes it’s the amount of last minute voters in a precinct,” said Javier Chacon, the County’s Elections Administrator.

Chacon explained that as long as a voter is in line outside a polling place, they are allowed to cast their ballot.

Lines at some precincts around town may be longer than others, which is why it may take longer for them to collect the hard disks inside every voting machine and bring it back to Elections Central.

There are 173 precincts in El Paso County. Some precincts were combined at certain polling places, which is why results will be coming in from 146 precinct judges instead of the full 173.

Judges arrive at the County Courthouse with bags full of records and voting machine hard disks that contain election results. The hard disks are handed over to county workers at Elections Central where each disk is inputed to a program that calculates elections results. Each precinct’s hard disks are inputed into the county software on a first come, first serve basis.

After all precincts are accounted for, county workers must run quality control tests on the software to make sure each vote was counted correctly. These tests are also conducted at the beginning of the day.

The hard disks from each precinct’s voting machine are saved for several days after the elections in the case of a recall.