On the Training Train

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.