September 24, 2019

Selfie Stations Outside the Polling Location "Selfie stations" are a great way to allow people who are excited about voting to memorialize and share the experience. We encourage you to set up selfie stations so that voters can take pictures of themselves and their family and friends after they have voted.  Please make sure the station is outside of the voting area and away from any line to vote.  Ideally, it would be outside of the building or in a separate room or hallway. These areas can be decorated with images promoting participation in elections such as “I voted”’ “Get out to vote,” and “Michigan votes.”  You may also want to consider having a contest for local students or residents to design a banner or other decorations for the station.  Get creative and please share with us what you come up with!

AV Focus Groups and LPI Process

Many of you participated in our AV Focus Groups held around the state in July and August.  Last week, we completed an AV Processing Lean Process Improvement (LPI) with this wonderful group of clerks pictured below.

This was the major step in a project to identify best practices and efficient processes for processing absent voter ballots on Election Day. This project covers in precinct processing and absent voter counting board processing by regular tabulator(s) and high speed tabulator. A number of products will be coming out over the next several months to show the efforts of this project. 

This group spent eight days in Lansing over the last month, generating a long list of best practices and ideas to make AV processing as easy as possible for their fellow clerks.  When you see them, please join us in thanking them for an incredible job and experience.

Pictured left to right, back row: Joshua McAlpine, Stephen Gerhart, Steve Daitch, Janet Santos, Kristi Dougan, Leanne Scott, Dave Tarrant, Ginny Vander Roest, Kyle Whitney, andDave Foster.  Second row: Heather Pefley, Lori Bourbonais, Terri Williams, Sally Williams, Stacy Loar-Porter, Darci Seamon, Amy Whipple, Tracy Ayres, and Matt Casby.  Front row: Joel Hondorp, Sheila Reitz, and Melanie Ryska.

Permanent AV Application List

In order to provide accurate information to voters regarding who maintains a permanent AV list and who does not, a new feature has been added to QVF.  If you maintain a permanent AV list, please take a moment to login to QVF, go to Clerk Contacts, and on the Contact Info tab check the Maintains Perm AV List box.

August Election - Proposal 18-3 Data Analytics – Voter Registrations by Age

Here are some interesting statistics on those who registered to vote in person with their local clerk between 14 days before the election and on the August Election Day.

• 712 total registrations were processed
   
  • 475 or 67% of all registrations were new Michigan voters
  • 307 or 43% registered on Election Day
  • 240 or 78% of those that registered on Election Day were new Michigan voters

Below is a pie chart of the breakdown of the registrations processed within the 14-day period.

New Registrations from July 23 to August 6 by Age

The oldest first-time registrant was 85, born in 1934.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Selfie Stations Outside the Polling Location
• AV Focus Groups and LPI Process
• Permanent AV Application List
• August Election Data Series
• QVF Refresh Update
• EAC National Best Practices in Election Administration Competition
• BOE Question of the Week

QVF Refresh Update The QVF Software Release for September 20, 2019 includes: Reports.  AV List and Daily AV now have separate fields for email address and phone number available when using the CSV report format.  AV List also now defaults to 20 voters per page. ID Cards.  School District is now showing on CSV report formats. Forgot Password.  Allowed more space between the Forgot Password and Login button.

EAC National Best Practices in Election Administration Competition The EAC has announced their annual "Clearie" award competition.  The competition seeks submissions of best practices in election administration.  If you have an innovative and/or effective idea in the management of elections (and we know you do!), BOE encourages Michigan election administrators to submit an entry. The deadline is Monday, November 25, 2019. Remember, in 2018 the City of Rochester Hills won the Innovation Award and in 2017 Port Huron Township won the Recruiting, Training and Retaining Poll Workers award! Full details can be found here.

BOE Question of the Week: Can Census workers survey voters outside of a polling place? Answer: Yes. However, this activity falls under the category of solicitation of voters and may only be conducted 100 feet from the entrance to the polling place. Have a question you'd like to see in the Question of the Week?  Send it to Elections@Michigan.gov.

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