Clerks Report Smooth Sailing – With Strong Early Turnout – During Nov. 6 Election

Voter turnout Tuesday was typical for a presidential election and the process, for the most part, went smoothly, clerks in Berkley and Huntington Woods said.

Turnout was strong early in the day, Huntington Woods Clerk Joy Solanskey and Berkley Clerk Cheryl Printz agreed, and the transmission of results was expedited by new wireless modem technology provided by Oakland County, with only small delays related to absentee ballot counting in both cities.

The turnout of registered voters in Berkley was 76 percent, compared to 78 percent in 2008, Printz said. In Huntington Woods, 83 percent of voters cast ballots, compared to 85 percent in 2008, Solanskey said. (See attached PDFs for detailed election information for each city and precinct.)

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Berkley

"Our precincts were done and reported by no later than 10," Printz said. "(The election) went very smoothly. It was excellent."

The clerk said there was only one delay, which occurred in Precinct 1 at City Hall.

"The program card for the absentee ballot counting board went bad and the county had to come reburn the card and election workers had to refeed all of the ballots for that precinct," Printz said. All of the votes were counted, she added.

The absentee ballot counting board is the group of election workers who feed absentee ballots into a tabulation machine.

The clerk said she took several steps ensure the voting process was smooth, including the following.

• The precincts were adjusted this year so they would be more even based on 2010 census figures. For example, Precinct 3 at Berkley High School previously had almost 3,000 voters while Precinct 2 at Rogers Elementary School had approximately 1,400; now each precinct has approximately 1,700 voters. (See attached PDF for 2012 precincts.)
• Seven to eight workers were stationed at each precinct instead of the usual five or six.
• A help desk was set up at each precinct to assist voters who had problems so that the line would not be held up while their concerns were addressed.
• Workers at each precinct handed out sample ballots to people waiting in line so they could study their options before they got into the voting booth.

"People came early, so in the beginning of the day there were some longer lines," Printz said, adding that after 11 a.m. the turnout lightened. "It was constant, but there was never a long line."

Huntington Woods

"I felt like everything went really smoothly," Solanskey said.

The biggest delay was that the absentee counting board only had one tabulator to process approximately 1,500 ballots, she said.

"My counting board finished up at approximately 10:45 p.m.," Solanskey said.

Also helping to expedite the process were the new wireless modems, which worked "perfectly" to automatically transmit results from each tabulation machine to Oakland County, and the fact that lines to vote tapered off before the polls closed at 8 p.m., she said.

"There seemed to be a lot of people at the polls early and not a lot at night. There really weren't people in line at 8 o'clock," Solanskey said. "I actually ordered pizza for my election workers because I thought we would be there late.

"I have awesome election workers. They are the best," Solanskey added. "The staff at City Hall is wonderful too. We don't have too many people anymore and they really stepped up."