Janice Winfrey's gotta go.

[firstandten]

Up to now I've been willing to give Janice Winfrey the benefit of doubt. I don't know now. This is a major, major screw-up. She has damaged the integrity of her office. I am not particularly fond of her opponent but I may need to listen a little more closely to what she has to say.

[psubliminal]

gvidas, thanks - but where is this icon of an earth?

When you post a quick reply at the bottom of any thread, there is a row of icons above where you type your reply; it's just to the right of the yellow smiley face. It's actually a globe with a little chain [[link) at the bottom.

[nativegirl]

Firstandten,
Here's Dallias Etta Wilcoxon's website:
http://www.dettawilcoxon.com/#!multimedia/c1n01

Using Detroit school children to do the city clerk job sounds admirable [[ I am being very sarcastic).

[stinkytofu]

This office not only needs new leadership...I would recommend an investigation to see what was the reason behind all these screw ups. Very troubling.

[48205to24]

How soon we forget......
http://www.freep.com/article/2013080...pector-lawsuit
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/23034324/lawsuit-filed-over-detroit-election-inspectors.
http://www.michronicleonline.com/ind...ion-inspectors

"Labor Robert Davis and a Detroit city clerk candidate filed suit Friday over what they claim were illegal appointments of elections inspectors who assist in the voting process and tabulation of ballots
"
.."The suit asks a judge to order the city to produce all copies of applications for the inspector jobs filed by those who were hired, and to stop any inspectors who were improperly appointed from working on election night.

As of August 5 the election commision still had not approved the inspectors


My questions are who were the inspectors? Why wait so so late to approve them? Where they new inspectors and if so, why were new ones used, why not use the inspectors from previous elections?

What was the official decision in the lawsuit? Now that apparently, the court allowed the primary to go forth under the new 'flawed' process backfired. Why are people so suprised?

[nativegirl]

Hey 48205to24..take a look at my rather long diatribe in the Benny won? thread to get a gist of whom the election inspectors are. It is unfortunate for the Department of Elections that it does not have a lot of cognizant Detroit residents to work as pollworkers. This was an issue that I had addressed when I was Chairperson back in 2008. There are training classes and they are mandatory but just because someone show up does not mean they have digested all there was to know about the Election process. Think of school: every student will not "get it."
I suggested that during each election cycle that ALL election workers re-take the exam that I had to take back in 2007 when I applied to become a pollworker. As of this date, I am not sure anyone in Administration has taken my letters [[including one addressed to Mr. Baxter) to heart. So now you are witnessing the ineptness of the pollworkers.

[48205to24]

. So now you are witnessing the ineptness of the pollworkers.

I saw what you wrote, but I dont necessarily agree with it. I know poll workers too and they are competent. I have never been one, so I do not know. This has not happened before to my knowledge.
People were complaining that they used "new" inspectors and if that is the case who were the "new" inspectors.

I still want to know who the inspectors were in this particular primary [[thus the lawsuit) and why it took so long to approve them.

[Wesley Mouch]

Hey 48205to24..take a look at my rather long diatribe in the Benny won? thread to get a gist of whom the election inspectors are. It is unfortunate for the Department of Elections that it does not have a lot of cognizant Detroit residents to work as pollworkers. This was an issue that I had addressed when I was Chairperson back in 2008. There are training classes and they are mandatory but just because someone show up does not mean they have digested all there was to know about the Election process. Think of school: every student will not "get it."
I suggested that during each election cycle that ALL election workers re-take the exam that I had to take back in 2007 when I applied to become a pollworker. As of this date, I am not sure anyone in Administration has taken my letters [[including one addressed to Mr. Baxter) to heart. So now you are witnessing the ineptness of the pollworkers.

I can accept the idea that mistakes will happen because poll workers are 'students' and won't always get everything. And I've heard [[second hand) of problems in suburban districts.

But this doesn't explain Winfrey's comments today in Crains where she accepts sub-standard poll work.

"Whether one uses tally marks to represent [[the number of votes) or a whole number to represent such, a five is still a five, and the value of the number doesn't change," Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said this morning after the Wayne County Board of Canvassers refused to certify the mayoral primary election results.

It is this kind of acceptance of sub-standard results that gets you sub-standard results. This is a culture that needs to change in Detroit. The reasonable rules need to be followed. Its not just that you can justify your results. Do things right.

[Honky Tonk]

I can accept the idea that mistakes will happen because poll workers are 'students' and won't always get everything. And I've heard [[second hand) of problems in suburban districts.

But this doesn't explain Winfrey's comments today in Crains where she accepts sub-standard poll work.
[/FONT][/COLOR]It is this kind of acceptance of sub-standard results that gets you sub-standard results. This is a culture that needs to change in Detroit. The reasonable rules need to be followed. Its not just that you can justify your results. Do things right.

Better yet, it's not up to the poll workers to change the rules mid-stream, nor for the overseer to ask "what's the difference?".

[Wesley Mouch]

Better yet, it's not up to the poll workers to change the rules mid-stream, nor for the overseer to ask "what's the difference?".

You're quite right. This isn't the hard stuff. This is just a good, simple way to count ballots and make sure you have the right numbers. And they didn't do it.

They no-doubt had a picture of a properly filled-out form. And they didn't do it.

Why not? I can't imagine. But we worry oh so much about voter fraud and voter access -- and then our election officials don't respect a perfectly reasonable way to count your ballots?

Think about it.

If you are going through ballots, how else would you do it? You'd look at a ballot, then you'd mark somewhere what the result marked was. Tally Marks are about the only fair way to do this. You read the ballot and mark the result. You don't do private systems of your own in your own way. You don't just remember how many. You have to have a system. If you don't have a system, then your vote count is much too easy to fake. This is so basic. I just can't believe this is the issue. Please tell me its not really the issue.

[downtownguy]

I can accept the idea that mistakes will happen because poll workers are 'students' and won't always get everything. And I've heard [[second hand) of problems in suburban districts.

But this doesn't explain Winfrey's comments today in Crains where she accepts sub-standard poll work.
[/FONT][/COLOR]It is this kind of acceptance of sub-standard results that gets you sub-standard results. This is a culture that needs to change in Detroit. The reasonable rules need to be followed. Its not just that you can justify your results. Do things right.

I saw the video where she made that comment, and I believe you are taking it out of context. Winfrey has been adamant that the votes should be counted regardless of the controversy. She's not making excuses for what went wrong, she's addressing the fact that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers disqualified the votes in the final count based on the mistakes of the poll workers.

[Locke09]

I saw the video where she made that comment, and I believe you are taking it out of context. Winfrey has been adamant that the votes should be counted regardless of the controversy. She's not making excuses for what went wrong, she's addressing the fact that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers disqualified the votes in the final count based on the mistakes of the poll workers.

I saw the video too, and came away with the conclusion that she is doing what she always does, minimizing the significance of something her team didn't do right, deflecting the fault on someone else and displaying a lack of knowledge and appreciation of the rules and the laws. The last one is why I deem her incompetent. All too often she misrepresents the rules and the laws regarding elections. She should know better by now.

[poobert]

I saw the video too, and came away with the conclusion that she is doing what she always does, minimizing the significance of something her team didn't do right, deflecting the fault on someone else and displaying a lack of knowledge and appreciation of the rules and the laws. The last one is why I deem her incompetent. All too often she misrepresents the rules and the laws regarding elections. She should know better by now.

She gets paid $73,181 per year to fuck up and make excuses. This isn't the guy at McDonald's screwing up your order here. If you're given that level of responsibility and the pay grade to match, you don't fuck up, period.

As we say in the sea-going services, "there are no bad crews, only bad leaders"

Time to ditch the bitch.

[nativegirl]

"Time to ditch the bitch". Just wow Poobert. You are really "showing" just who you are!

[Wesley Mouch]

I saw the video where she made that comment, and I believe you are taking it out of context. Winfrey has been adamant that the votes should be counted regardless of the controversy. She's not making excuses for what went wrong, she's addressing the fact that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers disqualified the votes in the final count based on the mistakes of the poll workers.

I didn't watch the video. I only know that when you have an election where any reasonable person would expect large write-in volume, that there would be specific training and guidance on how to count them. Leaders anticipate problems, and guide their charges through them safely. I don't know facts here. But it sounds like most of the absentee ballots were counted incorrectly. The form shows an area for hash marks. Did Winfrey produce any information on her training program for counting absentee ballots. I would think the first thing you'd see from a city clerk here would be a one-pager with an outline of responsibilities for each level of worker in handling write-ins. Have we seen that yet? Have we heard about that? Or anything even remotely like training or instruction? That's my main beef. Am I right?

[nativegirl]

I didn't watch the video. I only know that when you have an election where any reasonable person would expect large write-in volume, that there would be specific training and guidance on how to count them. Leaders anticipate problems, and guide their charges through them safely. I don't know facts here. But it sounds like most of the absentee ballots were counted incorrectly. The form shows an area for hash marks. Did Winfrey produce any information on her training program for counting absentee ballots. I would think the first thing you'd see from a city clerk here would be a one-pager with an outline of responsibilities for each level of worker in handling write-ins. Have we seen that yet? Have we heard about that? Or anything even remotely like training or instruction? That's my main beef. Am I right?

Wesley,
When I was an Election supervisor, we were given "Job Aids" and one of the job aids that I can recall included how to do write ins. Write ins aren't new but in this election it was a lot. From what I understand from a Polling Site Assessor this past election there were two mandatory meetings for ALL Election supervisors [[Chairperson, Sr. Chair, Super Pollworker who oversee the whole operatin, Polling Site Assessors and Polling Site Coordinators). In fact, there was a 2-hour training course for these Supervisors Thursday and Friday [[ they had to pick a date and a time ) and THEN there was a mandatory 2 hour meeting on the Saturday preceding the Election at a church down the street from the DOE.
Now, whether or not those supervisors who errored actually paid attention in class is the issue because it seems to me that the DOE did have training specifically to address the write in situation. I will dig up my training manual this weekend that I received in 2007 because it dealt with a litany of things including write ins.

On another note, the training went down hill after Mr. Edwin Ukegbu [[U-kay-boo) passed away in the Summer of 2011. November 2011 was my last election and I noticed a major difference on how training was done. Mr. Ukegbu headed training and did not play!

[Locke09]

As of the morning before the election, those poll workers had not been approved or certified. There was a rush to get that done that Monday morning as there was a court hearing regarding failure to certify them 21 days prior to the election.

So I seriously question how well they were trained or prepared.

[Wesley Mouch]

...I will dig up my training manual this weekend that I received in 2007 because it dealt with a litany of things including write ins. ...

Great. I'd be interest in hearing what it says about write-in hash marks.

Before I moved to the city within the city, I voted in many Detroit elections in a couple of different precincts. And I attended many elections with my mother as a child starting before I can remember.

I found the election officials to be competent and conscientious. Never saw anything done less than perfectly. Of course my experience isn't recent. But spans from legacy control to 'black' control. And from when Detroit was prosperous to relatively poor overall.