"All of the unopened ballots were on the bottom, with all of the open certificate envelopes on top," [Executive Director for the Milwaukee Election Commission Claire] Woodall-Vogg said. "And knowing how thorough we are at Central Count, I have no doubt that they brought these ballots up to the table saying that they were complete, not indicating to anyone that half of the ward was missing."
I can't figure out what this statement is intended to mean. Anybody else get it?
I don't think so. I think "unopened ballots" refers to the inner envelopes containing ballots (the inner envelopes do not carry any identifying information), and "open certificate envelopes" refers to the outer envelopes that do contain identifying information. Absentee ballots are normally required to be submitted this way so that the identifying information can be used to verify that it's a registered voter and not a duplicate using the same registrant's information twice. After the incoming ballot packages are (supposedly) verified this way, then the outer envelopes are removed and grouped together separately from the still-unopened inner envelopes that contain the actual ballots. This is to ensure (assume proper procedures are followed) that the people opening/removing the identifying outer envelopes cannot see the actual ballots, so they can't see which identified voters voted for which candidates. The unopened inner envelopes should then be opened, the ballots removed, and the votes tabulated.
So what she appears to be describing is a batch of ballots that were received, and then went through the initial process of having the identities on the outer envelopes checked against the registration rolls and each voter recorded as having voted, and then had the outer envelopes removed and grouped separately from the inner envelopes (so names and votes could no longer be matched). But then the last step -- removing the ballots from the inner envelopes -- never occurred, and the whole box was just set aside somewhere and forgotten.
What I can't figure out is what she meant by "And knowing how thorough we are at Central Count, I have no doubt that they brought these ballots up to the table saying that they were complete, not indicating to anyone that half of the ward was missing." Well obviously "we" are not thorough, because this whole box of ballots got forgotten halfway through being processed. The rest of the sentence makes no sense to me either. What does someone bringing the box to the table and saying they were "complete" have to do with "half of the ward was missing"? And claiming that "we" are so thorough is a complete contradiction of the information she gives in the rest of the sentence.
This woman needs to be deposed under oath, to explain what she knows, when she knew it, and what the hell she meant by this convoluted, self-contradicting statement to the media.
I can't figure out what this statement is intended to mean. Anybody else get it?
It seems to allege that they were intentionally buried under open ballots
I don't think so. I think "unopened ballots" refers to the inner envelopes containing ballots (the inner envelopes do not carry any identifying information), and "open certificate envelopes" refers to the outer envelopes that do contain identifying information. Absentee ballots are normally required to be submitted this way so that the identifying information can be used to verify that it's a registered voter and not a duplicate using the same registrant's information twice. After the incoming ballot packages are (supposedly) verified this way, then the outer envelopes are removed and grouped together separately from the still-unopened inner envelopes that contain the actual ballots. This is to ensure (assume proper procedures are followed) that the people opening/removing the identifying outer envelopes cannot see the actual ballots, so they can't see which identified voters voted for which candidates. The unopened inner envelopes should then be opened, the ballots removed, and the votes tabulated.
So what she appears to be describing is a batch of ballots that were received, and then went through the initial process of having the identities on the outer envelopes checked against the registration rolls and each voter recorded as having voted, and then had the outer envelopes removed and grouped separately from the inner envelopes (so names and votes could no longer be matched). But then the last step -- removing the ballots from the inner envelopes -- never occurred, and the whole box was just set aside somewhere and forgotten.
What I can't figure out is what she meant by "And knowing how thorough we are at Central Count, I have no doubt that they brought these ballots up to the table saying that they were complete, not indicating to anyone that half of the ward was missing." Well obviously "we" are not thorough, because this whole box of ballots got forgotten halfway through being processed. The rest of the sentence makes no sense to me either. What does someone bringing the box to the table and saying they were "complete" have to do with "half of the ward was missing"? And claiming that "we" are so thorough is a complete contradiction of the information she gives in the rest of the sentence.
This woman needs to be deposed under oath, to explain what she knows, when she knew it, and what the hell she meant by this convoluted, self-contradicting statement to the media.