On the Training Train

[kevin_standlee]

I've now gone through refresher/update training for caucus volunteers including temporary precinct chairs such as myself. They made it clear up front that they did scrap the original plans to us a phone app loaded to individuals' smartphones and instead will use a "caucus calculator" pre-loaded onto iPads that the precinct chairs will be issued when we check in on caucus day. The calculator makes it much easier to do the math, but it can be done by hand, including hand-counting the advance instant-runoff ballots by hand if necessary. Counting IRV ballots like that is tedious, but not all that difficult for me. I understand how much trouble it might be for people who haven't been living with it for thirty years like I have been. This makes me glad I volunteered; the party needs my skills!

The system is multiply backed up. The technology parts (the iPads) make it easier, but there are paper forms at all of the steps. The results of the counts are written on posters that everyone can see, and a representative from each viable preference group (voters for a given candidate) signs the poster in the view of everyone. We take photos of the posters and encourage anyone else who wants to do so to take photos. There are other backups in the process as well. As I've said multiple times before, I much prefer an accurate result that takes a little longer than a super-fast result that is wrong and has to be corrected.

Comments

[delosharriman]

Paper forms for all of the steps?
Amazing! It sounds as though someone is actually capable of learning.

[wild_patience]

We're having (online) sexual harassment training at work. I'm glad that they now include not just gay/lesbian, but also transgender and go into gender identity and gender expression. That's progress for a company headed by a white guy down in Irvine, CA.

[timill]

And you get to introduce them to the joys of serpentine counting...

[kevin_standlee]

As a matter of fact, that's how I intend to ask the different preference groups to count off, rather than me having to count them. That way there should be no question (once we've added in the advance voters) of how many people have voted in a given group.

[madfilkentist]

The "caucus calculator" sounds worrisome to me. Is this a special piece of software written for the occasion? What does it do?

[kevin_standlee]

It takes the total number of votes cast and compares to how many people aligned with a candidate (including the first preferences of those people who voted early). It then shows you which groups are viable, meaning that they have at least 15% of the votes. You can do it by hand as well, but this does the math for you.

Remember, most people have difficulty with any concepts other than first-past-the-post, so a system that allows anyone other than first-past-the-post usually needs to give people a little help. Think about the IRV system used for the Hugo Awards. It still boggles a lot of people, because they only understand horse races. It's particularly boggling when the candidate that was first at the end of round won doesn't win, because a lower-preference candidate collects more subsequent preferences. (I'm thinking of the time that a Harlan Ellison work led at the end of the first round but didn't have a majority, and ended up placing last because people either voted it first or last or not at all.)