Three days in the life of a "ballot opener"

What it takes to get your absentee vote counted

What happens to your absentee ballot, once it arrives at the election office? For the past three days— 8 am to 4 pm—I’ve been a cog in the rigorous, behind-the-scenes process that ensures the security and validity of the approximately 35,000 mail-in absentee ballots received at St. Louis County [Missouri] Board of Elections in advance of the November 5, 2024, election. I’m here to tell you how it works, and what I learned.

My temp-job title was “ballot opener,” a role I didn’t know existed until a few years ago. Now, having done it for three straight days, I can attest to the back-straining, leg-stiffening, shoulder-scrunching, finger-cutting, carpal-tunnel inducing nature of the work. I can also say that I finished my portion of the job convinced that any election board that employs this method of processing absentee ballots—or a reasonable facsimile thereof— is doing a good job of ensuring the reliability and security of the ballots, and the accuracy of the ultimate count.

The oath

When the 14 teams first assembled for the job in a makeshift workspace in the cavernous Election Board warehouse, agenda item one was to raise our right hands and swear that, among other things that I can’t remember right now, we’d do our jobs without political bias, and that we would NOT discuss with anyone the votes we saw on any ballots. So, don’t ask me if I think the absentee votes were trending one way or another. While it might have been tempting, at first, to try to ascertain trends, after just a few minutes of following the prescribed procedures, I no longer gave a crap about who voted which way: the process kept us too busy to bother; and all we wanted to do was to finish the “batch” we were working on.

Teams

As we arrived for our shift, our election overlords instructed us to choose a partner—anyone in the group, as long as they were from the opposite party, so that all teams were bi-partisan. I think everyone implicitly knew that we were required to check our politics at the door. We were told that no one could work alone at their table—if your partner goes to the bathroom, you must step away from the table and wait for them to return.

Step-by-step

The work itself is not intellectually challenging, but it is procedurally exacting. On our table is a plastic bin stocked with absentee ballots in their mailing envelopes—banded together in groups of about 100. Before these ballots get to us, election staff have looked at each of the envelopes, matching/verifying signatures and checking for notarization on the envelopes that require it [but not removing the ballot from the envelope.]

We’re the openers. Our job is essentially two-pronged: One—make sure that the ballot is in condition to be scanned [marked in a way that the scanner can pick up, and not dog-chewed, coffee-stained, torn, or otherwise mutilated. We place damaged ballots in a prominent position in their batch, so that election staff can make sure that they get scanned. Two—make sure that, after we take the ballots out of their envelopes, we have the same number of ballots as envelopes. Both team members must initial every ballot after inspecting it, using a pen of a designated color unique to the process. We place the checked ballots in sealed plastic bags, with auditing info attached, and we thread a zip tie through a hole pre-punched in the ballot envelopes, which keeps the batches together and in order, and also confirms that no envelope contains a stray, unprocessed ballot.

We do not—I repeat not—count the votes, just the number of ballots and envelopes. The actual vote counting does not start until election day.

The official election staff watches us closely, applies a further level of auditing and recordkeeping to our batches, inspects our work, and lets us know when our quality control is off—in a friendly way. [Kudos to the staff for their patience and good-natured way of keeping us on task.] We complete a batch, then it’s “rinse and repeat,” and on to the next packet in what seems like an endless series, until the end of our shift.

At quitting time, we leave our work at whatever stage it’s at. The workspace—an area surrounded by a heavy-gauge security “cage”—is locked up tight overnight, with no one allowed in until the bi-partisan staff opens it up for us in the morning.

Mistakes

We make mistakes, and so do voters. We can’t move on until the number of envelopes and the number of ballots jibe. Almost always, a mismatch is the result of faulty counting—so we count and recount and recount, until we figure out who goofed by fat-fingering two ballots or envelopes into one, or by simply losing one’s place while counting to 100 for the umpteenth time.

In checking for the “scanability” of ballots, we can’t help but notice the mistakes voters make. It’s obvious that some people fill out their ballots while doing other things, such as drinking coffee, applying makeup and/or nail polish, feeding the baby, or playing with the dog. We’re instructed to consult a supervisor about any ballot or envelope that is off in some way. We do that a lot.

Some voters fill in the wrong choice and try to correct the mistake by filling in the right one, and then trying to cross out the first mark. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re not allowed, by order of the Secretary of State, to send a mis-marked absentee ballot or envelope back to a voter.

Others ignore the warnings printed on the ballot and fill in the boxes with permanent marker, which bleeds through to side two and will confuse the scanner. Those ballots go into a fix-it pile that will be handled by bi-partisan others.

The saddest mistake I noticed was when a voter misunderstood the meaning of “Write-In,” and, after filling in the box for their preferred candidate, also wrote in the candidate’s name on the “write in” line. On every race. I’m thinking that this was a first-time voter, unfamiliar with the write-in option, who thought they had to confirm their vote by writing in the name. I feel bad for them.

Lessons learned

Our two-person team processed about 600-700 ballots each shift. As of the weekend before the election, more than 30,000 ballots had been received, with more on the way. Do the math: It takes a boatload of person-hours to complete the job. [Imagine, then, how long it would take to hand-count all ballots—as some people are suggesting—when there can be tens or scores of contests to be tabulated separately!]

Not to be glossed over or lost in the mechanics is the lesson of bi-partisanship at the heart of the ballot-opening gig. My partner and I, as I have noted, left our political views outside the workplace. But in three shifts together, we did have conversations—they kept us sane—and we gleaned a lot about each other. We are total political opposites—each as scared of the outcome of this election as the other. Yet, we worked together extremely well, collaborating on a system to keep ourselves on track, accepting each other’s mistakes, sharing tales from our life experiences, and even joking about subjects that were safe from politics. We didn’t talk about candidates or policies. We made it work. And in the end, we agreed that—even in today’s caustic political environment—everything doesn’t have to be about politics—and we can work together for a higher cause. Kumbaya, I know. But I find that heartening.

At the end of our third day, our supervisors asked everyone if they could come back to mop up on Monday. They got three takers. My partner and I declined. It was an enlightening experience—one that made us appreciate the work that goes on backstage in elections, and one that reassured us that it would be next to impossible to stuff the absentee ballot box, steal ballots, or otherwise cheat on this aspect of the election. But three shifts fried us.

And, as with everything else in the realm of election administration—as I have observed in my book and repeat whenever I get the chance—this experience reminded me that when people really see and understand the procedures behind voting at well-run election boards, they come away feeling reassured. I was already there, but this experience solidified my confidence. I wonder how they do this elsewhere.