#electionofficer

Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 05, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

and that’s it. 8:20 is a pretty decent exit time. It was a bit of a mess. My chief could have been more organised. But we managed. 79 voters. #electionofficer 12/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

We had a little treat from a voter. On the way out he asked if we wanted to see a magic trick. Just pulled out a deck of cards and did some sleight of hand and card forcing tricks. This guy was good. I mean, I’m no expert. I couldn’t tell you how they were done. But it was standing close enough to touch him and he just did this flawlessly. Holding a 5 of spades, flicked his hand, and now it’s a jack of spades. Neat stuff. Nice little break. #electionofficer 11/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

I just had an #electionofficer teaching moment. We have one rookie on the crew today, but even the veteran officers didn’t know about this situation. We use paper ballots. You mark a bubble next to your choice, and then slide it into a scanner. If there’s a problem, the scanner kicks it back and beeps. What they didn’t know is that we, the officers, NEED to look at the error on the scanner’s screen and maybe ask the voter a question. See, it is legal to vote a blank ballot. Some voters do this as perhaps a protest. Like “I’m voting, but I don’t like any of these.” If the machine kicks it back because it is blank, we have to stop and ask the voter “do you intend to vote a blank ballot?” If the machine thinks the ballot is blank, and the voter pushes it in a second time, the machine will keep it and register it as a blank ballot. There’s no getting it back and no way to let the voter do something else, once the ballot has been accepted by the machine. In the case today, the error on the scanner said “stray marks.” The scanner wasn’t certain which candidate they were voting for. So the solution is to ask the voter to colour in all the circles next to all the choices (so I can’t tell who they tried to vote for), and then I give them a clean ballot and they try again. I take the spoiled ballot and send it back to the office of elections, accounted for in our paperwork. It’s a little unintuitive. And people who like voting (eg election officers) often don’t imagine someone going to the trouble of showing up, showing ID, and then just putting a blank ballot in the machine. In 20 years of elections, I’ve never seen a voter deliberately vote a blank ballot. But they can. 9/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

Welp. It’s 17:30. We have 90 minutes left. E have had about 60 votes cast (out of about 75 people who came through). Just the stipends for the election officers adds up to about $2250 for the day,l. So the county is paying about $37.50 per vote. And that’s not counting ANY of the central office costs. I don’t know how the finances work, but I sure hope the political parties reimburse the county for running the election. One #electionofficer is in touch with a friend who is working a different precinct. By mid afternoon they had not even cracked 10 voters. But they were super lucky. That precinct is in an animal shelter. When there are no voters they can visit with doggos! I’m totally jealous. 10/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @ClimateJenny@biodiversity.social

@ClimateJenny@biodiversity.social There are about 4700 registered voters in this precinct. We have 16 votes on the machine. We’ve seen about 25 people. Many look at the ballot and decide not to vote. #electionofficer

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

I got to thinking about accessibility because someone came walking up with a walking frame…and his dog. We can’t have dogs in the school, so our greeter held the leash on the dog outside while the voter came in. (It was not a service animal) So the voter made this trek on foot, with his dog in tow, climbed up the step carefully, took a look at the ballot, and decided not to vote. A lot of effort to not vote in the end. 8/ #electionofficer

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

The voting place is meant to be accessible, and schools frequently are. But summer time is repair time for schools. This one is renovating its front door, so the main door and the main lobby are pretty messy. We chose to use a single door to the gym for both entrance and exit. It’s not great because there’s an 8 inch step at the door and we have no ramp. Now, if someone needs a step-free path, they CAN use the front door and come all the way through the school. It’s sufficiently safe and unlocked. In fact, a few voters already came in that way out of habit (ignoring umpteen signs pointing them to the gym door). It’s just that the lobby is messy and dirty and the lights are off (because the work involves replacing lights). We thought it best for most voters to avoid all that if they can. This is rubber-meets-the-road stuff. It’s decisions we have to make on the day. I think the county may have missed a bit when they did their site survey. I think they should have seen this and made changes. (A ramp for the 8 inch step is all we need). #electionofficer 7/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @liamdv4@mastodon.ie

@liamdv4@mastodon.ie I wish. The sitting senator is a Democrat (Mark Warner) and is popular. He stands a good chance of being reelected. The primary just picks which republican will face him on the ballot in November. I haven’t seen any ads or effort to get out the vote in this area. Republicans are not dominant in this locality, so I think the low turnout reflects how few republicans live in the area and are motivated to vote for a particular candidate. It’s not likely to reflect the voters’ behaviour in the general election. I wouldn’t read much into it. #electionofficer

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

On a sleepy primary #election, there’s ample opportunity to read. My son gave me this book for my birthday. Galahad and the Grail. I love the original Sir Thomas Mallory Mort D’Arthur, and reread it every so often. This is an epic, book-length poem retelling just a small part of the King Arthur story. The verse is very rhythmic and a joy to read. The illustrations are beautiful and timeless. In the introduction, the author says it is good to read it out loud because the words are meant to be felt on the tongue. It’s true. I find myself reading quietly aloud sometimes. #electionofficer

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

While working as an #electionofficer, we chat. And a couple fellow officers began discussing AI. I showed them noai.duckduckgo.com and they were instantly excited. One went to another officer and showed him how to get the #DuckDuckGo app and set it as a default web browser. These are ordinary people. They aren’t some tech zealots one way or another. As far as I can tell, from what they say about themselves, they just didn’t bother making changes. It’s just this tiny amount of inertia, but it’s enough. And hearing me talk about it was enough to get them interested in making the chance. 5/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

We are set up in a school gym. That’s pretty common. We put some cones out to control traffic. As you can see, the traffic is fully controlled. There is no traffic at all. 😛 #electionofficer 4/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

If you’re new to following me, you haven’t seen one of my election day threads. I’m an election officer in Fairfax County, Virginia, USA. Tomorrow is an #electionday in this county (and probably other Virginia counties), so I will do a live thread throughout the day. I’ll hashtag it #electionofficer so you can tune in or tune out as it suits you. I try to talk about what’s happening, how we handle it, what the rules are, etc. Ordinarily, tomorrow would be a sleepy election. A single party primary. But there’s been talk of the US department of justice sending “observers” to polling places. It’s no big deal, but that would be a very non-sleepy thing to happen. My job runs 5am to 9pm, so it’ll be a long thread over the course of the day. Now to try and get 5 hours of Zzzzzz

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

Replying to @paco@infosec.exchange

It’s going to be a sleepy election day. There’s only 1 race on the ballot: republican primary for US Senate. This is Virginia voters deciding which person will be the republican candidate for US Senate at the election in November. The county organises this vote for the parties. We run it the same as any other. Some areas have a democratic primary also. So far we have had ONE voter. He was here at opening time. Good for him. But that’s it. That’s our 1 voter. #electionofficer 2/

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Paco Hope @paco@infosec.exchange · Aug 04, 2026

It’s 6:30 local time, polls are open, so this is the root post for my #electionofficer thread. I’ll try to make all messages replies to this one and tag them. 1/

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