Margie Flynn and her staff of 15 worked seven days a week since May, she said.
The group adorned with the name "Margie's Mob" was in charge of facilitating the abrupt switch to absentee voting for the Arlington Central School District, prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Flynn, the district clerk, described the process as "grueling" — from devising logistics to sending out ballots and ultimately executing the count — and unlike anything she has experienced in a 20-year career.
"We had over 9,000 ballots (returned). It was overwhelming to the point that I needed a closet just to store the volume of the lock boxes," Flynn said. "It was extremely overwhelming and so time consuming, I don't know how it could have been better. I hope to never see this process again."
Flynn is not alone. Many district clerks across the state struggled to meet Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order rescheduling the planned May 19 in-person votes. The difficulties were illustrated when the planned June 9 deadline for districts to receive ballots was pushed back to June 16, amid problems at printing presses. Still, many district leaders said the timeframe was too short.
Still, the absentee system was successful in boosting interest in what are traditionally low-turnout elections. And, fears of that an increase in ballots may buck the trend of districts passing budgets with relative ease proved unsubstantiated. But, districts say improvements to the system, as well as what was dubbed an expensive process, would be needed if widespread mail-in voting were to be used in the future.
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All 16 districts in the Journal's coverage area passed their spending plans and propositions, most by wide margins. That includes Dover, the only district to ask voters for permission to exceed the tax cap.
Wappingers was the last to complete the count Thursday afternoon, after beginning Wednesday morning. The 12,861 ballots counted in Dutchess County's largest district was a 451% increase over the 2,334 votes cast last year.
Throughout the Hudson Valley, the mail-in system resulted in a sharp increase in voter participation. In 2019, the 16 districts in the Journal's area combined to roughly 16,000 total votes. This year, districts counted roughly 54,000.
'Cumbersome and expensive'
Red Hook Central School District Superintendent Paul Finch had two words to describe the 2020 school vote: "cumbersome and expensive." Finch, like many other local leaders, said if the process is to be used again, a better approach is needed.
"This was an unusual year with a shifting timeline and some unclear executive orders. I would want a more proactive approach to communicating the rules and timeline," Finch said. "I do think it proved easier (for most people) to vote. That said, it is a much more expensive methodology."
Red Hook's voter participation increased by 152%. Arlington's was boosted by 274%.
Arlington Superintendent Brendan Lyons aired similar sentiments as Finch, criticizing the governor's timeline for putting together a vote.
“I think, with more time to prepare and fine tune the system, mail-in voting could be effective. But, this last-minute order by the governor really created a mess and was very expensive for school districts,” Lyons said.
Finch said the increased turnout gave him a better sense of the community's feelings toward the district, noting that the new system provided a much easier alternative than casting ballots in-person.
Organizing an at-home vote
Districts across the region faced a slew of obstacles.
Issues began when dozens of New York districts went to a Niagara Falls printer to get their ballots, only to be told that the company could not fulfill the order in time to get ballots into the hands of voters. School districts such as Arlington, Beacon, Hyde Park, Poughkeepsie and Wappingers districts were impacted from the delay. That led Cuomo to push the deadline for when districts could begin counting from June 9 to 16.
Flynn said once the district got hold of its envelopes, she and her "mob" were able to take off running. The group worked every night until 8 or 9 p.m., including the weekend. Flynn said she was amazed by the dedication of her staff.
In the Poughkeepsie City School District, obstacles extended beyond the initial print delay. Superintendent Eric Rosser said upon receiving envelopes the district found that the return address on its self-addressed envelopes were for Hudson, not Poughkeepsie. He said District Clerk Becky Torres worked with postal service to get ballots sent out properly.
Poughkeepsie received 2,313 ballots this year, up from 840 in 2019.
A future for mail-in voting?
Torres said she believes the system can be used in the future, but a longer deadline for receiving ballots would be necessary.
"The process that was used in Poughkeepsie worked," she said. "If we were to have an all absentee ballot election again, I would not change the process I used in counting the ballots."
Flynn, conversely, said she would prefer never to see the mail-in system again. In Arlington, counting lasted about 11 hours in two sessions on Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
Over a livestream posted to the the district site, Arlington staff could be seen counting ballots with gloves and masks. Each of the 15 working with Flynn sat at their own table six-feet apart. Other districts shared similar livestreams; Beacon held its count with tables spread out around the high school's gym, while Dover showed workers around a table in an office.
Each envelope was checked against a list over registered voters, stamped, and counted, a "tiresome" process that took many districts hours to complete.
"We've been using machines for so long and machines they do the tallying... this time, we were the machines. We had to manually do everything for two days," Flynn said. "To get to the counting part, to prepare every envelope, we had to check every name with Board of Elections to make sure they were valid voters. I'm 60-years-old, I've never seen anything like this."
Katelyn Cordero: kcordero@poughkeepsiejournal.com; 845-437-4870; Twitter: @KatelynCordero.
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June 19, 2020 at 05:00PM
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School voting: Mail-in system 'grueling,' 'expensive,' but effective, schools say - Poughkeepsie Journal
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