Tick marks like these are the same technique used to recount elections.

On Aug. 7, 2012, ballots were cast in primary elections – to finalize the ballot choices for voters in the Nov. 6 general election.

And  last week, on Sept. 4, 2012, the Washtenaw County board of canvassers conducted a recount of some of those ballots. Several different races were recounted, including some from Augusta Township, Sylvan Township, the city of Ypsilanti, and the city of Ann Arbor.

In the city of Ann Arbor, it was the Ward 4 city council contest that was recounted. That race had offered a choice for voters between incumbent Margie Teall and Jack Eaton.

The initial count of ballots across Ward 4 showed Teall with a total of 866 votes, compared to 848 votes for Eaton. That’s a difference of 18 votes. Another way of putting that: There was an average difference of exactly two votes per precinct in Ward 4. [Warm-up puzzle: How many precincts are in Ward 4?]

In the recounted totals, each candidate lost a vote in Precinct 9. In Precinct 6, Teall picked up one vote and Eaton lost one. That left Eaton and Teall with 846 and 866 votes, respectively. So the hand-counting of the paper ballots essentially confirmed the result of the optical scanners used on election day.

I’ve now covered four recounts for The Chronicle in the last five election cycles. At a recount event, as many as four separate tables might be set up in the room. Of course, the candidates in the races being recounted and their supporters are interested in watching the recounting of the ballots – to make sure everything is done properly. So it’s typical that four or five people stand around each of the tables watching the recounting as it takes place.

The actual recounting of the ballots for a given precinct is done by three people seated at the table. One person examines each paper ballot and calls out the name of the candidate who received a vote. The two other people each record a tally mark on a grid. At the end of the recounting, the hand-recorded totals on the two grids must match each other. If they don’t, everything must be re-recounted.

So the recounting procedure depends on the ability of the talliers to hear the person who is calling out the candidate name for each ballot. Because of that, everyone in the room always observes strict silence, without even being told by members of the board of canvassers that they must be quiet.

I’m kidding. It’s always necessary for a member of the board to shush everyone – more than once. That’s because we all fall prey to the belief that we can have our own side conversations that are quiet enough not to disrupt the counting – unlike those other loudmouths.

One reason those side conversations take place is that people need a way to pass the time. That’s because watching a recount is just plain boring. (That’s how you know it’s important.) So as you’re standing there watching, you start to wonder: How long is this going to take?

And as you look at the number of people assembled in the room, some of whom are being paid $12 an hour to do the recounting, you also wonder: How much is this going to cost?

Cost of a Recount

The city of Ann Arbor sends a newsletter to its election workers called Pollwatcher. The Summer 2012 edition of  Pollwatcher included an editorial comment about the Ward 4 recount. It claimed that the recount was unnecessary and wasteful:  ”[T]axpayers’ dollars will be wasted on this needless recount.”

That’s the kind of opinion that people are free to express as individuals, but shouldn’t be free to express on behalf of the city of Ann Arbor. And the city later removed the document from its website. For my part, I think that any recount serves the useful purpose of validating the accuracy of the optical scanners.

At any rate, it’s still a fair question to ask: How much did the Ward 4 recount cost?

That all depends on what you count as a “cost” of the recount. For example, city clerk Jackie Beaudry and deputy city clerk Jennifer Alexa attended the recount – but they are not paid for that work beyond their regular city salary. You can imagine an argument that their time should be factored into the cost. But for the purposes of this puzzle, we’ll focus just on the additional cash that the city had to pay directly in connection with the recount.

The cash totals below were provided to The Chronicle by city clerk Jackie Beaudry and by Washtenaw County chief deputy clerk Ed Golembiewski.

Puzzle One:  The total cost to Washtenaw County to recount the Aug. 7 election – for Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Sylvan Township and Augusta Township – was $426.35. Washtenaw County divided the cost among the four governments based on the number of precincts that were recounted for each government. That is, each local government was charged its proportionate share, based on the number of precincts that had to be recounted. The total number of precincts recounted was 22. Of the 22 precincts to be recounted, 9 were for Ann Arbor’s Ward 4. How much was Ann Arbor’s share of the $426.35?

That’s not the whole story. Candidates in an election can’t just demand a recount willy-nilly. They need to file an application and pay $10 for each precinct that they wished to have recounted. In the case of Ann Arbor’s Ward 4, Jack Eaton had to write a check to Washtenaw County to cover that cost. And that amount was subtracted from the cost that Washtenaw County charged to the city of Ann Arbor.

But the city of Ann Arbor had additional cash costs, not involving Washtenaw County. The ballots had to be retrieved from a storage warehouse – by workers who are paid as needed on an hourly basis. That cost was $145.

Puzzle Two: Using your answer from Puzzle One, and factoring in the $90 check written by Jack Eaton and the $145 cost for the hourly workers, what was the cost per ballot to the city of Ann Arbor for the recount? (Use the recounted ballot totals for your calculation: 866 for Teall and 846 for Eaton).

How Long Does a Recount Take?

One way I pass the time at a recount is to use a stopwatch to measure the rate of recounting at different tables.

On Sept. 4, one table recounted at a rate of 10 ballots per minute. If that sounds slow to you, bear in mind that the paper ballots had two sides. Both sides of the ballot had to be checked, even though the Ward 4 city council race was just on one side. That’s because sometimes people try to vote in both the Republican and Democratic primary – and it’s not hard to make that mistake, because both sets of candidates are printed on the same sheet of paper. If someone “cross votes,” that ballot is not counted.

Puzzle Three: Assume a counting rate of 10 ballots per minute. How long, measured in hours, minutes, and seconds, would it take to count 1,712 ballots?

Solutions to puzzles are welcome in the comments section.

Post Script: Ballot Length

The physical layout of the ballots for the upcoming Nov. 6, 2012 general election has been finalized for all the governments in Washtenaw County. Chief deputy clerk Ed Golembiewski, who also serves as Washtenaw County director of elections, told The Chronicle in a phone interview that all the items finally did fit on a single sheet of paper. That’s significant, because Golembiewski said that early in the process, it looked like two sheets of paper would be required to make all the items fit.

So for this election anyway, we will not have to contemplate the added complications and delays that a two-sheet ballot would cause on election day. And if there’s a recount, only one sheet of paper will need to be recounted.

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Races to be recounted include the race for city of Ann Arbor Ward 4 Democratic councilmember. The final results across the nine precincts of Ward 4 showed incumbent Margie Teall with a total of 848 (49.5%) votes, compared to 866 (50.5%) for Jack Eaton – an 18-vote difference.

The city of Ypsilanti Ward 3 Democratic councilmember race will also be recounted. In that race, Pete Murdock tallied 440 (60.03%) votes compared to 242 (33.02%) for Mike Eller and 47 (6.41%) for Ted Windish.

Three races in Augusta Township will be recounted, all in the Democratic primary: clerk, treasurer and trustee. In the clerk’s election, Iva Bielec tallied 304 votes (46.70%) compared to 343 (52.69%) for Kathy Giszczak. In the treasurer’s election, Susan Burek tallied 312 (49.60%) compared to 315 (50.08%) for Lynda Dew. And in the trustees election, Cath Howard tallied 324 (16.78%) compared to 278 (14.40%) for H. Neil Johnson, 307 (15.90%) for Laverne Kailimai, 310 (16.05%) for Joseph Keefe, 375 (19.42%) for Judy Thornton, and 329 (17.04%) for Ira Todd. Voters could choose up to four, so it’s the three-vote spread between Kailimai and Keefe that’s of most interest.

The Sylvan Township millage proposal will also be recounted. The yes votes numbered 480 (50.37%), while 473 (49.63%) no votes were cast.

Possibly added to the recounts to be done on Sept. 4 will be the Northfield Township Democratic trustee election. The board of canvassers will hold a meeting on Aug 29, 2012 at 10:30 a.m. to hear an objection to that recount. If the outcome of the hearing is to recount the ballots, then that recount will be held on Sept. 4 with the others. In that election, Douglas  Del Favero had 180 (18.26%) votes, with David E. Gibbons Jr. getting 189 (19.17%), Michael J. Magda getting 179 (18.15%), Tracy S. Thomas getting 236 (23.94%) and Athena Trentin getting 197 (19.98%). Voters could choose up to four candidates. So it’s the one-vote margin between Magda and Del Favero that’s at issue.

The recounts will be held at the county building at 200 N. Main Street in Ann Arbor in the lower level conference room.

According to Washtenaw County director of elections Ed Golembiewski, the recounting of the physical ballots will likely be scheduled for early in the week beginning Aug. 27, depending on the availability of members on the board of canvassers. That would accommodate the 7-day requirement to allow other candidates involved to file objections.

The other candidate involved was incumbent Margie Teall. The final results across the nine precincts of Ward 4 showed Eaton with a total of 848 (49.5%) votes, compared to 866 (50.5%) for Teall. That’s a difference of just 18 votes.

A recount costs the candidate requesting a recount $10 per precinct. So to recount all of Ward 4 would cost $90. If the recount changes the outcome of the election, that fee is returned to the candidate.

Recent recounts in area elections include: (1) the August 2008 Ward 5 city council Democratic primary contested between Vivienne Armentrout and Carsten Hohnke (58 votes); (2) the August 2009 Ward 3 city council Democratic primary contested among LuAnne Bullington, Leigh Greden and Stephen Kunselman (6 votes); and (3) the 2010 District 11 Washtenaw County board of commissioners Democratic primary between Yousef Rabhi and Michael Fried (1 vote).

In those recounts, the final vote total did not change by more than a couple of votes, and none of the outcomes changed.

Members of the board of canvassers who will oversee the recount are: Tony DeMott (Republican), Melodie Gable (Republican), Ulla Roth (Democrat) and Frances Brennan (Democrat). [.pdf of recount process]

Before the Aug. 26 recounting got started, Conan Smith (left), a current county commissioner acting as one of Youself Rabhi's official "watchers," chats with Mike Fried (right), who'd asked for the recount. Shooting video for the Michigan Election Reform Alliance was Jan BenDor. Seated in the background is Alice Ralph, who came third in the balloting for the District 11 seat.

The process started around 12:30 p.m., and about four hours later in the lower level conference room of the county building at 200 N. Main St., the final ballots had been recounted – the last ones coming from Precinct 2 in Ann Arbor Township. [District 11 covers parts of southeast Ann Arbor and one precinct in Ann Arbor Township.]

Fried summed up the afternoon, conceding to Rabhi – who was still the winner after the recounting, with a relatively comfortable margin of two votes: “Well, congratulations!”

Fried continued with compliments all around for  the board of canvassers and the election inspectors who handled the recounting, saying he was amazed that they had finished in four hours.

The board of canvassers consists of Tony DeMott (R), Melodie Gable (R), Ulla Roth (D), and Carol Kuhnke (D). The news was first reported by The Ann Arbor Chronicle live from the scene: “Rabhi Prevails on Recount.”

The work might have been completed sooner, had it not been for a snafu with the Ann Arbor Township ballot box. Initially, the box for Precinct 1, not Precinct 2, had been delivered for recounting. Getting access to the correct box depended on tracking down someone with a key to the room in the township clerk’s office, where the ballots are stored.

Recounted totals for the four candidates: Yousef Rabhi, 999; Mike Fried, 997; Alice Ralph, 280; LuAnne Bullington, 108.

The afternoon included a range of scenarios that illuminated some of the more arcane aspects of the voting system. Also in attendance was Joe Baublis, who will be on the ballot for the Republicans in November for the District 11 county board seat. He posed a question at the start of the proceedings: How much will this recount cost taxpayers?

How Much Does a Recount Cost?

In response to the question from Baublis, Washtenaw County deputy clerk Matt Yankee, who is acting director of elections, noted that the election inspectors at each of four tables are paid by the hour, and that the documents related to payment are subject to the Freedom of Information Act – in the event that anyone was curious to get an exact figure after the payments were made.

There were four tables with two election inspectors apiece, paid at an hourly rate of $15. For a roughly four-hour afternoon, that would amount to a ballpark estimate of (4 tables) x (2 people) x 15 (dollars/hr) x 4 (hours) = $480. In fact, the cost was dramatically less than that.

Melodie Gable and Tony DeMott, members of the board of canvassers, walk election inspectors through part of the unsealing procedure for the ballot duffel bags.

The Chronicle followed up with Yankee, who responded by email to a query for a better-than-ballpark estimate. The main reason that it cost less was that of the eight people who served as election inspectors, five didn’t need to be paid extra: one was a full-time permanent employee with the county clerk’s office; two were already part-time temp employees with the county clerk’s office; and two were employees from local jurisdictions.

That left three people people who needed to be hired specifically to work the day of the recount. Two of them worked 3.5 hours ($52.50) and the third worked 4.5 hours ($67.50). Yankee also noted that parking validation would be paid for those workers. [Based on hourly rates at structures of $0.45 per half hour, around $15 would cover parking for those three workers.]

Yankee noted that the $160 deposit posted by Fried ($10 per precinct for the 16 precincts involved in the recount) wouldn’t be refunded, because the outcome of the election did not change.

Based on board of canvasser Melodie Gable’s remarks in response to Baublis’ initial query, the four board members present were also paid $25 per day for their work.

An estimate of the final accounting for the day’s expenses:

EXPENSES

$ 52.50  Election Inspector
  52.50  Election Inspector
  67.50  Election Inspector
  25.00  Board of Canvassers
  25.00  Board of Canvassers
  25.00  Board of Canvassers
  25.00  Board of Canvassers
  15.00  Parking Validation

$287.50  Total

REVENUE

$160.00  Deposit

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The Missing Box: Ann Arbor Township Precinct 2

It was a slightly longer day than expected, due to the delivery of the box for Ann Arbor Township Precinct 1 ballots instead of the box for Precinct 2.

Ann Arbor Township's ballot box for Precinct 1 showing the side with the temporary seal. The other side of the box also has an opening, with a permanent seal.

The mistake can be traced to the physical configuration of the metal boxes used to store the ballots. This style of box has a point of entry on each side of the box – one of which is required by the state of Michigan to have a “permanent” seal. The other side is the seal containing the information specific to a particular election, including the precinct number.

The permanent seal for the box indicated Box 2, which apparently was misunderstood to mean that it contained the ballots for Precinct 2. In fact, Box 2 contained Precinct 1′s ballots.

When the mistake was recognized, the call out to Ann Arbor Township indicated that locating the key to the room where ballots are secured might pose a challenge.

A combination of August vacations plus absences due to personal reasons had raised a brief specter of a door getting broken down by the fire department or sheriff’s deputies. When a key was successfully located, the resolution to the “crisis” proved to be far less dramatic.

The city of Ann Arbor uses sturdy duffel bags, not the older style boxes.

Does It Match? Ann Arbor City Ward 3, Precinct 3

Ann Arbor city Ward 3, Precinct 3′s ballots offered a chance to work through some of the more arcane aspects of validation and cross-checking involved in election recounts.

Ward 3, Precinct 3: Seal Matches Poll Book?

Before any ballot containers are opened, the first step is to confirm that the poll book number assigned to the container matches the number indicated on the container seal. In the case of the Ward 3, Precinct 3 duffel bag, the numerical sequence indicated in the poll book matched the sequence on the duffel seal – except that there was an extra number 5 tacked on the end in the poll book, compared to the sequence on the duffel.

Lyn Badalamenti was one of the election inspectors working the table who discovered the mismatch. Her name might strike some Chronicle readers as familiar, because she was the Ann Arbor city clerk staffer who supplied Steve Bean with his paper work, when Bean took out his petitions to file as an independent candidate for mayor of Ann Arbor.

Badalamenti observed that the extra 5 yielded an 8-digit number, but that the city of Ann Arbor has no 8-digit seals. That is, the number indicated in the poll book denoted an non-existent seal. Members of the board of canvassers were called over to rule and voted unanimously in favor of accepting the explanation that a 5 had inadvertently been added. Said Tony DeMott, “I prefer to see ballots counted.”

Ward 3, Precinct 3: Number of Ballots Matches Poll Book Total?

After opening a ballot container, and before the actual recounting of ballots begins, the total number of ballots in the container is counted and compared to the number of ballots recorded on the tape produced by the optical scanning voting machine and recorded in the poll book. If the numbers don’t match, the ballots don’t get recounted.

For Ward 3, Precinct 3, the total number of ballots in the container was counted twice as 831 – but the poll book indicated 830 ballots. One ballot was identified as possibly the “extra” ballot. It had the telltale folds indicating it had been sent through the mail – an absentee ballot. It had “Flawed #5″ handwritten on it – indicating a ballot that should have been run through the optical scanning machine with a manual override, but apparently was not.

A brief discussion unfolded at the table around the idea that the ballot should have been placed by poll workers on election day in one of two envelopes marked either “original” or “spoiled.” The two envelopes correspond to two kinds of scenarios. The first is when poll workers need to make a duplicate of a ballot in order to get the machine to accept the vote. This is associated with absentee ballots, which are typically processed on election day during the course of the day. Poll workers feed the absentee ballots into the machine on behalf of voters.

But suppose an absentee ballot is physically defective in some way. One example Melodie Gable gave was that sometimes absentee voters will put a really hard crease into the ballot when they place it into the envelope, which causes problems with the optical scanning. The solution to getting the machine to read and count that voter’s selections is to duplicate exactly on a “clean” ballot all voting choices and to feed that ballot into the machine, saving the original ballot for the “original” envelope.

A different scenario involves an in-person voter who tries to submit a ballot that the machine does not accept due, for example, to cross-voting – that is, voting in both the Republican and Democratic primaries on the same ballot. In that case, the voter can be provided with a new ballot, advised again not to vote in both primaries, and given another shot at voting. Their original ballot, however, is preserved in the “spoiled” envelope. The Chronicle stumbled across this kind of situation during primary election day coverage:

1 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 3: Second Baptist Church (850 Red Oak Drive).

[...]

Poll workers are handling a spoiled ballot from someone who apparently accidentally filled in votes for both primaries. The voter must fold it in half and place it in a special envelope, then re-try with a new ballot. Voting is a success.

When an absentee ballot is fed into the optical scanning machine and it’s rejected due to a physical defect in the paper, a duplicate can be made on behalf of the voter. But if the rejection is due to cross-voting, then poll workers are supposed to force the optical scanner to accept the ballot through an override, which the machine then counts as a ballot, though it does not count any of the selections.

Mike Fried’s wife Liz, who served as one of his official watchers at the recount, told The Chronicle at the recount that she knew of three people who had voted for Fried, but had also voted in the Republican primary, so their votes for Fried didn’t count.

The board of canvassers clustered around the table and determined that the “extra” ballot was adequately explained by the theory that it had not been inserted into the scanner with an override. Canvasser Ulla Roth lamented the fact that the poll workers had not made a note in the poll book explaining what had happened.

In the course of the deliberations and discussion about the extra ballot, canvasser Tony DeMott pointed out that there were people touching the ballots who were not authorized to do so: “Are we going to have rules, or not?” And the unauthorized touching did not persist.

The One-Vote Swing

The one additional vote for Rabhi came as the result of a ballot that was not counted due to an apparent crossover vote – the absentee voter had been analyzed by the optical scanner as attempting to vote in both the Republican and Democratic primaries.

On manual inspection, however, the ballot indicated that the voter had started to fill in a selection on the Republican side of the ballot, had written the word “no” and then voted the Democratic side of the ballot. The instance fit the description of a “correction” described in the manual of guidelines for interpreting ballot markings and the selections on the Democratic side were allowed to count – that voter selected Rabhi.

Ballot Photography

Jan BenDor attended the Aug. 26 recount to shoot video for the Michigan Election Reform Alliance. In 2008, BenDor had run for Superior Township clerk in the Democratic primary. She lost to David Philips, and had requested a recount.

At the start of Thursday’s meeting, BenDor was told she could not shoot close-up video of actual ballots, but she stood her ground. She stated there was not a proscription against it and cited a Michigan attorney general opinion [Opinion No. 7247] from earlier this year stating that ballots are public documents subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

From the opinion:

Voted ballots, which are not traceable to the individual voter, are public records subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq. The Secretary of State, in her role as the Chief Elections Officer, or the Director of Elections through the authority vested in that office, may exercise supervisory authority over local elections officials responding to a Freedom of Information Act request for voted ballots by issuing directions for the review of the ballots in order to protect their physical integrity and the security of the voted ballots.

BenDor was allowed to shoot video throughout the recount proceedings.

Links

For a breakdown of the recounted results by precinct, see this Google Spreadsheet: Rabhi-Fried Recount.

Previous Chronicle coverage of recounts:

• “Anatomy of a Recount“
• “Recount Confirms Kunselman Wins“

Photos

Conan Smith, Washtenaw County commissioner for District 10, greets city of Ann Arbor clerk Jackie Beaudry. Seated next to Beaudry is Lyn Badalamenti with the city clerk's office.

Dave DeVarti (left), former city councilmember and former Downtown Development Authority board member, was one of Yousef Rabhi's official watchers. Rabhi is standing on the right.

Standing are members of the board of canvassers: Melodie Gable and Tony DeMott. They were handling the Ward 3, Precinct 3 ballots, which provided two opportunities for board of canvasser rulings. Seated is Conan Smith, who was watching on behalf of Yousef Rabhi.

Yousef Rabhi and Peggy Rabhi.

Matt Yankee, deputy county clerk and acting director of elections, brought materials by the box full.

Matt Yankee, deputy clerk with Washtenaw County, marks ticks in columns as candidate names are read aloud during the recount of the Aug. 4 Democratic primary election for the Ward 3 city council seat. (Photo by the writer.)

Friday morning in the lower level of the county building at 200 N. Main, Letitia Kunselman held her cell phone out in the general direction of Melodie Gable, chair of Washtenaw County’s board of canvassers. Gable was wrapping up about 90 minutes of ballot recounting from the Ward 3 Democratic primary for Ann Arbor city council. By that time, her official announcement stated an outcome that everyone in the room already knew.

We’d followed the hand recount of paper ballots table-by-table, as one precinct after the other confirmed individual vote totals from the initial Aug. 4 results.

What Gable reported was exactly the news that Letitia Kunselman’s husband Stephen – on the other end of the cell phone line – wanted to hear: his own 511 votes compared to Leigh Greden’s 505 had been confirmed, leaving Kunselman the winner of the primary. The third candidate, LuAnne Bullington, picked up one vote in the recount in precincts 3-4 and 3-7 (these precincts shared a single polling location on election day), bringing her total to 382.

We include in our report the vote totals, some anecdotal bits from the morning recount, but more importantly, a brief look at the impact that Greden’s departure will have on council’s committee composition.

Results After the Recount

At the end of the recount on Friday morning, here’s how the final vote tally stood:

WARD 3             Bullington  Greden   Kunselman

Precinct 3-1,3-2      3         20        45
Precinct 3-3         92        160        96
Precinct 3-4,3-7    149        159       137
Precinct 3-5         25         32        23
Precinct 3-6,3-9     66         75       118
Precinct 3-8         47         59        92

Totals              382        505       511

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Miscellaneous Roundup from the Morning Recount

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Overall Mood: Not Bitter

Given the number of “watchers” on behalf of the various candidates, The Chronicle posed a question to Greden, regarding which people were there on his behalf: “So not all of the watchers are here officially watching for you …” He quipped in reply: “No, Latitia Letitia Kunselman is not here watching on my behalf.”

Greden also showed no visible sign of chaffing when his name was repeatedly mispronounced at one of the counting tables – each candidate’s name is called out when a ballot with a vote for them is examined. Last year, at the Ward 5 Carsten Hohnke-Vivienne Armentrout recount, The Chronicle noted that “… a predictable range of pronunciations for ‘Hohkne‘ ‘Hohnke’ could be heard.” This year, it probably couldn’t have been predicted that Greden would be rendered as “Brenden” – but it was.

Where Was Kunselman?

Why wasn’t Stephen Kunselman there in person? Letitia Kunselman told The Chronicle that he was in California – he’d gone with his son, Shane, to launch him into his freshman year in college.

Who Were the Watchers?

In alphabetical order, the names of the watchers – who helped verify that the recounting was proceeding to the satisfaction of all interested parties:

• Tim Colenbeck Colenback
  
• Dave DeVarti
• Tony Derezinski
• Jack Eaton
• Diane Giannola
• Lou Glorie
• Leah Gunn
• Letitia Kunselman
• Pat Lesko
• Joan Lowenstein
• Lois Mayfield
• Peggy Rabhi
• Karen Sidney
• Christopher Taylor
• Tom Wieder

We leave it as a political puzzle to match watchers with the candidate on whose behalf they attended.

Impact on Committee Structure

The city council reorganizes itself into committees soon after the new council is formally installed every November. Five committees on which Greden currently serves will thus have a different look in a couple of months. Here’s who currently serves on those committees:

• Budget and Labor Committee: Leigh Greden, Stephen Rapundalo, John Hieftje, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall
• Council Administration Committee: Leigh Greden, Stephen Rapundalo, John Hieftje, Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall
• DDA Mutually Beneficial Committee: Leigh Greden, Carsten Hohnke, Margie Teall
• City Council Representative to DDA Partnerships Committee: Leigh Greden
• Student Relations Committee: Leigh Greden, Carsten Hohnke

Where Did These Committees Come From?

We’ve pieced together a brief history of these committees based on the description in the 2006 City of Ann Arbor Boards, Commissions and Committees document. Some significant consolidations in committee structure took place in December 2005. One effect of the restructuring was to collapse different committees with similar functions into single committees. One consequence, in some cases, was to reduce the breadth of participation in committees.

Budget and Labor (Negotiation) Committee

The stated purpose of the council’s budget and labor committee is:

To work with City Administrator to advise about City labor issues. To advise the Mayor, Council and City Administrator on matters relating to the City’s comprehensive annual financial report, audited statements and management letter; appointment of independent auditors; the City’s financial condition including revenue issues; financial investment policies and procedures; short- term and long-term borrowing policies and proposals; matters relating to the budget process, implementation and administration; and short-term and long-term financial polices and plans.

The council’s Budget and Labor Committee was established on Dec. 5, 2005 when the city council of that year passed the resolution establishing its committee structure for 2006. The membership of the Budget and Labor Committee is defined as five members – the mayor plus four members of the city council. It included at that time – and appears to continue to include – three ex officio members: the city administrator, the city’s chief financial officer, and a member of the commission on disability issues.

Budget and Labor combined what had previously been two different committees: (i) the Budget/Finance Committee, and (ii) the Labor Negotiation Committee.

Prior to 2006, the Budget/Finance Committee was a 13-member body: the mayor, four councilmembers, three citizen members, the city administrator or representative, the budget director, the finance director, and two other department heads appointed by the city administrator.

Prior to 2006, the only mention of the Labor Negotiation Committee we could find was a reference to the 1997 edition of that 5-member council committee: Stephen C. Hartwell and Elisabeth L. Daley (Democrats), and Ingrid Sheldon, David Kwan, and Jane Lumm (Republicans).

When first established as such in December 2005, the council’s Budget and Labor Committee consisted of John Hieftje, Christopher Easthope, Leigh Greden, Marcia Higgins, and Joan Lowenstein.

Council Administration Committee

The Council Administration Committee was also established in December 2005 as the combination of other previously existing committees when council reorganized its committees:

Established to combine the following committees into one: Special Liquor Committee, Real Estate Committee, Ad Hoc Rules Committee, City Attorney Committee, City Administrator Committee.

The last two committees in the list historically performed the specific task of evaluating the performance of the city attorney and the city administrator. For both of these committees, the membership was specified to be the mayor plus a councilmember of each ward (for a total of six), the specific councilmember to be determined by the two ward representatives.

In council rules, the Council Administration Committee is given a large part of the responsibility of setting and approving the agenda:

Approval of the Draft Agenda. The City Administrator shall submit the draft agenda and supporting materials to the Council Administration Committee for approval 10 days prior to the next Council meeting. The Council Administration Committee will approve the agenda 7 days prior to the next Council meeting. Once approved by the Council Administration Committee, no matter from staff shall be placed on the agenda for action. Council members may add items to the agenda at any time.

When originally constituted as such in December 2005, the membership of the Council Administration Committee consisted of Leigh Greden, Christopher Easthope, Marcia Higgins, John Roberts and Margie Teall.

DDA Mutually Beneficial Committee

The DDA Mutually Beneficial Committee was formed for the specific purpose of renegotiating the parking agreement between the Downtown Development Authority and the city. The city has a goal of convincing the DDA to pay around $2 million to the city for the 2011 budget year, which the DDA is not contractually obligated to pay.

In early 2009, the city council passed a resolution calling on the DDA to open a discussion on the topic. The DDA responded by forming a committee to meet with a corresponding committee on the city council. The city council then delayed formation of its own committee, because some councilmembers did not like the constitution of the DDA’s committee. One place to start for some of the details of that dynamic is a May 23, 2009 article on the DDA mid-year retreat.

[In the original version of this article, the Letitia Kunselman's name was misspelled throughout.]

Seated at the table, Matt Yankee, deputy county clerk, and Frances McMullan, Ypsilanti city clerk, who helped staff one of the recount tables. In red in the background: Melodie Gable, chair of the county's board of canvassers. Holding a cup in the background is Ann Arbor city clerk, Jackie Beaudry. (Photo by the writer.)

Frances McMullan, Ypsilanti city clerk, wields wire snips to break the seal of a bag containing paper ballots. Note: The Chronicle made its civic contribution to the recount by lending out the wire snips (we carry a bag of tools everywhere) to save some time in tracking down scissors. (Photo by the writer.)

Leigh Greden, left, with Joan Lowenstein and Jackie Beaudry, right. (Photo by the writer.)

At right and mostly off camera, Tom Wieder follows the tick marks of the recounting on his own notepad. The orange folder in the background belongs to Leigh Greden. (Photo by the writer.)

"Whoah, there, Larry Kestenbaum, sit back down, I didn't say I was done talking to you!" That, of course, is not what this WEMU reporter said to the county clerk. Kestenbaum gave welcoming and closing remarks at the recount. (Photo by the writer.)

The duffel bag containing ballots from precinct 5-4.

Early Tuesday, the lower-level conference room of the County Building at 200 N. Main was filled with the scent of freshly-groomed election inspectors, board of canvassers members, candidates and their volunteer observers, county workers, plus the odor of institutional coffee wafting from a big silver urn. The combination amounted to a distinctive smell, which The Chronicle loves … the smell of democracy in the morning.

We were there to recount the votes from the Ward 5 Democratic primary election for city council held in August, at the request of Vivienne Armentrout, who had been outpolled by Carsten Hohnke by 58 votes in an election that saw over 3,000 votes cast. “Campaigning for council,” Armentrout said that morning, “is a long hard slog.” She said that various reports of election-day problems that had been relayed to her prompted her to seek the recount. Those problems included an optical scanning machine that broke down and had to be replaced with a different machine, and ballots jamming in the machine.

Melodie Gable, chair of the board of canvassers.

Washtenaw County uses paper ballots, which are fed into an optical scanner that reads the darkened ovals next to a candidate’s name as a vote cast for that candidate. City clerk Jacqueline Beaudry explained for The Chronicle that the scanning machines themselves – i.e., the hardware – are the responsibility of the city, whereas the programming is done by the county.

Before the election, the city receives a programmed chip from the county, together with a set of sample ballots representing every possible combination of votes, which are used to test each machine before the election. Once the machine is tested, the programmed chip is sealed inside.

For Chronicle readers who would like to compute how many sample ballots will have been provided to the city by the county for the election we were there to recount, we provide a copy of the ballot: [.pdf from publius.org]

Before the business of counting began, chair of the board of canvassers, Melodie Gable, got things started by asking folks to introduce themselves – in particular the candidates and the volunteer observers they’d brought along. Helping Vivienne Armentrout observe were Rita Mitchell, Susan Greenberg, Pat Ryan, Lou Glorie, and Barbara Kritt.

Vivienne Armentrout (standing) introduces those helping her observe. Left to right: Rita Mitchell, Lou Glorie, Barbara Kritt. Not in this frame were also Susan Greenberg and Pat Ryan.

Carsten Hohnke introduced Tony Derezinski, Anja Lehmann, Joan Lowenstein, Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, and Dieter Hohnke. Names like Derezinski, Lowenstein, and Greden will likely be recognized by Chronicle readers even out of the context of an election recount. Less so, a name like Kritt.

Helping Hohnke observe were, left to right: Dieter Hohnke, Christopher Taylor, Leigh Greden, Joan Lowenstein. Not in this frame, Tony Derezinski, Anja Lehmann.

Chatting with Kritt, she revealing that back in the early 1990s, she was living in Nicaragua and had participated in the observation of elections held in Nicaragua, working in the capitol, Managua, receiving field reports from polling sites throughout the country. At that time she worked as a sociologist, as she does now in Ann Arbor, where she’s lived for more than a decade. Kritt didn’t know Armentrout before she launched her campaign for council.

Gable handed things off to Chief Deputy Clerk Derrick Jackson, who walked election inspectors through the precinct-by-precinct recount process, emphasizing that if the first two steps cannot be successfully completed for a given precinct, there can be no actual counting of votes for candidates, and that the vote totals already recorded would be accepted:

• The seal on the blue canvas duffel must match the number recorded on the poll book.
• The number of ballots (i.e., pieces of paper) must match the number recorded in the poll book.

Left to right: unidentified, Lou Glorie (observing for Armentrout), Jacqueline Beaudry (city clerk), unidentified, Christopher Taylor (observing for Hohnke), Vivienne Armentrout.

If the paper count is off, election inspectors are required to count exactly once more. The paper count in precinct 5-11 was initially short by seven ballots, but election inspectors working that table quickly found six ballots that had been folded, hence missed in the count.

Chief Deputy Clerk Jackson explained that the finding of the six additional ballots did not constitute a second count and that the count should be repeated. The second count confirmed that the bag was short by one ballot. So for precinct 5-11, there would be no tallying of votes for either candidate.

The tallying process itself has multiple checks for accuracy baked right in:

• at least three people are required – a reader plus two tally members
• the reader looks at each ballot in turn, and says aloud who the ballot is for
• tally members record hash marks on tally forms, up to five hash marks per cell
• every fifth vote for either candidate, tally members say “check”
• every tenth ballot – counted by the reader or some other non-tally member – tally members circle the last vote counted for each candidate.

As the tallying commenced, a predictable range of pronunciations for “Hohnke” could be heard. Perhaps it was uncertainly about “-kee” versus “-kuh” plus the tri-syllabic lengthiness of “Arm-en-trout” that led one reader to abbreviate the candidates’ names as she called out the votes for the tally members: “hahn, arm, arm, hahn, hahn, arm …”

Observers can raise questions for clarification with board of canvassers members, who circulate around the room. What kinds of questions arise? That morning, one involved a mark in the margin of the ballot that could have represented any number of things, depending on your vantage point. From The Chronicle’s vantage point, it looked like a heart, but oriented as the voter would have written on the ballot, the mark more closely reassembled a letter B. Board of canvassers member Kim Porter-Hoppe suggested it could be the numeral 13.

Rita Mitchell (standing, observing for Armentrout), Albert Pfeiffer, Janis Miller (election inspectors).

Whatever it was, Hohnke insisted that this was an “identifying mark” under Michigan state election law and that the ballot should be voided. That protest was not honored, however, with the explanation that a voter can pretty much write whatever they like on their ballot, including their name. The Chronicle suspects that even if the analysis of this particular mark was accurate, the explanation is inaccurate.

A question on a different ballot arose first when an election inspector, Janis Miller, sought advice from the board of canvassers about whether the marking of the oval next to “Carsten Hohnke” should be counted. The initial answer was no, but when Hohnke objected, Derrick Jackson interceded and explained that the X recorded on the ballot need not be perfectly centered inside the oval. So Hohnke kept his vote on that ballot.

In that case of the off-kilter X, it was the election inspector who first raised the question – and in general the inspectors are the people who wield the real power in the room. “Derrick, it’s getting loud in here!” was all it took for one election inspector to bring the noise level down. The noise stemmed from simultaneous counting taking place at four different tables, plus idle chit-chat between observers.

Pre-tallying conversations with Hohnke and Armentrout conveyed that The Chronicle’s real mission that day was to determine what names, if any, had been written in for the six ballots recorded as write-ins. Armentrout and Hohnke themselves, as well as their observers, helped feed The Chronicle what they saw: “Abstain,” “Jackie Chan,” “Sandi Smith,” “Dan Schaefer.”

Chief Deputy Clerk Derrick Jackson records results from each precinct recounted.

The vote for Sandi Smith, who was a candidate for council in Ward 1, probably stemmed from the several signs for her that were posted in Ward 5. The significance of the other votes is hard to assess. Even harder to fathom is why someone would write in “Hillary Clinton” for drain commissioner.

As the results of the precincts began to be recorded on the big white-board, most of which matched the prior totals, it became increasingly unlikely that there would be the kind of vote differences that would change the outcome of the election. As The Chronicle previously reported, the outcome was not changed. By the time the final precinct was re-counted, the smell of democracy had given way to the smell of pizza, which arrived from Papa John’s towards 1 p.m.

The election inspectors would need the fuel from the pizzas to get them through the second recount of the day, which the same inspectors carried out despite the initial decision by the board of canvassers to deny Jan BenDor’s request (candidate for clerk in the Democratic primary in Superior Township) for a recount. That initial decision was based on the fact that BenDor’s request alleged fraud of a kind that a recount could not address. However, BenDor and her supporters were able to convince the board of canvassers to perform the recount.

Carsten Hohnke gets a question clarified at the start.

Tools of the recount trade.