Election roundup: These are the days number nerds live for

The short answer is that spoiled ballots go back to City Hall.

All ballots must be counted, recounted, accounted for and returned to Elections. That's as close as a Star Trek Prime Directive as elections officials get.

We count ballots at the start of the day, recording how many blanks we receive. They come to us separated by weight and shrink-wrapped, so a packet of 200 may have 196 or 200 or 203. We have to know. We use a lot of Post-it notes as we work and each substack is counted twice. At the end of the evening, we compare what we've recorded in the check-in and check-out books, which must have identical counts and the same count as the ballot scanner. The counts in various detail go into the clerk's book.

As absentee ballots arrive, we treat those like in-person ones. We count them and see that this matches the Elections marking on their exterior label. We feed those into the scanner too.

If there are provisional ballots throughout the day, we record how many and put each one in its own sealed envelope. Elections researches each the next day to see if it is to be counted.

Each voter can have up to three ballots. When you spoil one, we mark it such and keep it in a spoiled-ballots envelope. If they spoil a third, we feed it in the scanner with the override button. All offices that are not marked badly or over-voted count. The others on that ballot are the same as blank as for as the scanner is concerned.

At the end of the day, the clerk and a minion or two record all ballots in, voted, spoiled, provisional. The warden and inspectors open the ballot box, and remove ballots from the write-in bin (the scanner reads those marked write-in ovals and deposits then separately). Then all other ballots are placed on a table where we look at each to see if there are write-in votes where the voter did not fill in a write-in oval. We aim to honor the intention of voters if it is clear what they meant.

By the bye, most in the write-bin do not have a candidate written in. Others have something less than useful, like MICKEY MOUSE.

Scanned ballots end up in used-ballot envelopes. All ballots except provisional ones go into the big ballot box the BPD officer takes to Elections. The cop takes the provisionals too, but in a separate zippered case (Envelope A in our lingo). That also has the keys to the Automark machine and scanner. Envelope A has the stuff that Elections needs quick access to, including the clerk's and check-in and check-out books. The used ballots and remaining blanks stay in the ballot box for 10 days in case there is a call for a hand recount. We put a plastic seal on the ballot box before the cop takes it, Envelope A and the scanner in its carry case to Elections.

That night, Elections folk remove the memory from each scanner to feed into computers for recording. A scanner printout is in the clerk's book and another remains attached to the scanner as double and triple checks. A third printout is on the polling place wall for candidates' poll checkers to record. It's the night shift.

Like the Monty Python song, this is Every Ballot is Sacred.