‘Very organized chaos’: A look at vote counting at the Ada County Elections Office

Sarah Cutler

You voted in Tuesday’s primary election in Ada County.

You stopped by your precinct, filled out a paper ballot and fed it into a voting machine. Of course, you got an “I Voted” sticker for the road.

Your job was done, but then what happened?

At the Ada County Elections Office, dozens of people were gearing up to do their jobs as part of what appeared to be a well-oiled machine — other than a few complaints about the cookie selection in the workers’ break room. The Idaho Statesman visited Tuesday night to get a look behind the scenes of the county’s vote-counting process. Here’s how it played out.

Ada County poll workers at the county Elections Office receive voting machines and equipment from each of the county’s 197 precincts after the primary election on May 21, 2024.
Ada County poll workers at the county Elections Office receive voting machines and equipment from each of the county’s 197 precincts after the primary election on May 21, 2024.

At around 8:30 p.m., 30 minutes after the polls closed, vehicles from each of the county’s 197 precincts began to arrive at the office with voting machines, “ballot bags” of completed ballots and transfer cases of unused ballots. As the evening progresses, this line of cars gets long, said Nicole Camarda, a communications and marketing specialist for the Ada County Clerk’s Office, under whose umbrella the elections office operates.

Ada County poll workers wheel voting machines, ballots and other supplies into the Elections Office.
Ada County poll workers wheel voting machines, ballots and other supplies into the Elections Office.

Poll workers, including county employees and paid volunteers, wheeled voting supplies from the vehicles into the elections office for processing under the watchful eyes of election officials.

Workers check which of the county’s precincts have dropped off their ballots.
Workers check which of the county’s precincts have dropped off their ballots.

County workers checked off which precincts dropped off the materials from their voting station, confirming that all equipment and ballots were accounted for as they entered the building.

Once inside the Elections Office, each precinct’s supplies are divided up and sent to different stations for processing.
Once inside the Elections Office, each precinct’s supplies are divided up and sent to different stations for processing.

Once inside the office, ballots and voting machines entered a fast-paced environment in which each component headed to a separate station for processing, moving smoothly from one station and room to the next.

It’s “a very organized chaos,” Camarda said.

Poll workers remove each voting machine’s V-drive by breaking a seal, then bring the drives into the tabulation room, left, to calculate election results.
Poll workers remove each voting machine’s V-drive by breaking a seal, then bring the drives into the tabulation room, left, to calculate election results.

Poll workers pulled out “V-drives” — basically, secure USB drives — from each voting machine. These drives have the vote count from all of the ballots submitted into that machine. Once the V-drive is removed, by breaking a seal within the machine, workers take each drive into the tabulation room, where the final results are counted.

Workers process used paper ballots to be placed in storage. The Elections Office preserves these paper ballots for years.
Workers process used paper ballots to be placed in storage. The Elections Office preserves these paper ballots for years.

As for the used paper ballots, they were boxed, sealed and put into storage. The same goes — separately — for the unused ballots.

The county deployed a fleet of election workers to absentee ballot dropoff stations to ensure that no ballots were submitted after the polls closed at 8 p.m. Once all properly cast absentee ballots made it to the elections office, county officials verified each signature before feeding those ballots into voting machines that never leave the office — they are there for this purpose.

County Clerk Trent Tripple demonstrates how election workers manually review absentee ballots that have an “overvote,” in which the voter selected more than the number of candidates allowed. Election workers review those ballots to try to determine the voter’s intent.
County Clerk Trent Tripple demonstrates how election workers manually review absentee ballots that have an “overvote,” in which the voter selected more than the number of candidates allowed. Election workers review those ballots to try to determine the voter’s intent.

Late in the night, County Clerk Trent Tripple demonstrated one of the office’s final steps for absentee ballots. In cases where a voter submits an “overvote” — that is, selects more choices than were allowed in a given race — county officials manually review the ballot to try to determine the voter’s intent. If there’s a clear effort to scratch out a selected candidate and choose another, officials honor that choice. If there’s no way to tell what the voter’s intent was, the vote in that particular race is not counted.

The vote-counting effort in Tuesday’s primary lasted until about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. The election’s turnout of about 21% was lower than projected, but the office still employed about 80 poll workers. With voter turnout projected to jump to maybe 85% during November’s general election, Tripple said he expects to at least double the number of poll workers.

About 80 poll workers reported to the Ada County Elections Office to help count votes after the primary election on May 21.
About 80 poll workers reported to the Ada County Elections Office to help count votes after the primary election on May 21.

Advertisement