Notices by Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social), page 6

"We ask that you process absentee ballots when there is a lull."
Ha! There aren't going to be lulls in November, it's a f'ing presidential election.
Let's hope they count as many as possible of the absentee and mail-in ballots downtown before election day so we don't have to process them all.
#pollWorkerTraining

If someone shows up who thinks they should be listed as a registered voter but they aren't in the book, we _must_ call the elections department and ask what to do. We should be prepared to provide the name and date of birth of the voter when we call. They will tell us what to do.
#pollWorkerTraining

If the tabulator says that a ballot is blank or over-voted, we have to give the voter the opportunity to fix the ballot, but if they don't want to, they can feed it back into the tabulator as-is.
(Sometimes the tabulator says a ballot is blank because the voter didn't fill in the circles properly, and sometimes it's because they didn't want to vote on any of the races on the ballot.)
#pollWorkerTraining

If a voter is marked inactive in the poll-book, they have to show ID to vote. If they can't show ID, the clerk or warden is required to "challenge" the voter's ballot, but they're still allowed to vote.
Challenged votes _are_ counted by the tabulator, but they have "challenged" written on them with additional information so they can be uncounted later if that's found to be necessary.
Yes, that means challenged votes are not entirely secret!
#pollWorkerTraining

Because this election has two sheets for each ballot, if a voter spoils one sheet of their ballot and needs to redo it, but the other sheet is fine, we need to "spoil" a blank sheet of the other variety from our pile to put into the spoiled ballot envelope with the sheet that the voter spoiled, so that our ballot counts remain correct (we don't want there to be more blanks of one sheet than the other left at the end of the day).
#pollWorkerTraining

Other reasons why someone's ballot could be challenged:
* Person challenging them claims they already voted.
* Person challenging them claims they don't live where they're registered.
* Person challenging them claims they aren't who they say they are.
#pollWorkerTraining

In the September election some of the tabulators ran out of paper while printing the tapes, which caused "mass hysteria" (trainer's words, not mine) at city hall. We've therefore added slides to the training to show how to replace the tape roll. Presumably that means there will be replacement tape rolls included among the election supplies sent to each precinct?
I hope they don't mean they'll courier tape rolls to the precincts only after they run out!
#pollWorkerTraining

Provisional ballots are issued if:
* Voter claims the right to vote but they're not on the voter list.
* Voter is listed on the voting list as being required to show ID (first time voter) and they don't have ID.
* Voter list says they already voted.
Provisional ballots are _not_ counted, they are kept separate and counted later by the elections department if they decide it's appropriate to do so.
Provisional ballots also aren't secret, for this reason.
#pollWorkerTraining

People with disabilities have the right to vote in Massachusetts.
They are allowed to ask poll-workers for assistance or have someone of their choosing accompany them to assist.
There is an "AutoMARK" machine which assists visually impaired people via magnification and hearing impaired people by reading the ballot out loud.
When should speak directly to the voter, not the person assisting them.
#pollWorkerTraining

Anyone is allowed to observe the voting.
They can bring their own list of voters to mark, listen to voter names being called out by poll-workers, and challenge voters for legitimate reasons.
Observers can't ask for additional information about voters; block the voting path; discuss voting results wiht poll-workers; interact with voters while they are voting; or bring or wear political stuff in the voting area.
#pollWorkerTraining

No campaigning or collecting signatures with 150 feet of the polling location entrance.
No candidates inside the polling location glad-handing people.
The police officer enforces these rules under the direction of the warden.
(Not part of the training: generally the 150-foot rule is loosely enforced, but sometimes campaign volunteers do cross a line and we have to send the police officer outside to tell them to behave.)
#pollWorkerTraining

The trainer is now going over all the administrivia that the clerk needs to do in the clerk's book after the polls close. This includes counting write-in and hand-count ballots, transferring totals from the tabulator tape to the tally sheet in the book, transferring the write-in and hand-count counts to the tally sheet, adding all that stuff together, recording the final used and blank ballot counts and making sure they're consistent, and some other stuff.
#pollWorkerTraining

Aside, not part of the training: the totals in the clerk's book are not final. There may be additional mail-in ballots postmarked by election day but received after election day or deposited into a dropbox too late on election day to get to the polls. They may also be provisional ballots that end up being counted. This is why "certified" results don't get released until several days after the election.
#pollWorkerTraining

Polls close at 8pm. If there are people in line at 8pm they need to be allowed to vote. The police officer should station themselves at the end of the line at 8pm and not allow anyone else to get in line.
We should keep our tabulators turned on until at least 8:10pm in case the election department shows up last-minute with a final batch of absentee / mail-in ballots.
#pollWorkerTraining

Note: except for a lunch-break, poll-workers are at the polls from 6am until 9pm. Please be nice to them, they're tired and harried.
#pollWorkerTraining

Worst case, if someone seems like they are going to get violent, enlist the assistance of the police officer, but obviously this is to be avoided if at all possible.
#pollWorkerTraining

Sometimes the inspectors are allowed to leave early, before the warden and clerk leave, but because this is going to be a very busy and potentially harrying election, they're asking everybody to stay until the end.
#pollWorkerTraining

They're talking about the importance of deescalation if someone gets worked up during the election (this has not been mentioned on any of the previous poll-worker trainings I've done). They're giving a _little_ bit of advice about deescalation, but honestly, IMHO it's not enough. Good deescalation training takes hours, including a substantial amount of role-playing for practice.
Hopefully this won't be necessary. 😕
#pollWorkerTraining

Another story about the September election: there were a substantial number of people who agreed to work the election and then didn't show up. It was a big problem, and those people were not invited to work the November election. We still need more election workers for November, so please ask your friends to sign up.
https://www.boston.gov/departments/election/how-apply-become-poll-worker
#pollWorkerTraining

I'm a tad bit annoyed by #infosec professionals referring to the #Okta bug that was just announced as an "authentication" bypass or vulnerability when it is, rather, an *authorization* issue.
Authz bypasses are bad, but dramatically less bad than authn bypasses, because the size of the population able to take advantage of them is much smaller and typically more trusted.
Getting the terminology right matters.
Ref: https://trust.okta.com/security-advisories/okta-classic-application-sign-on-policy-bypass-2024/