This Clay guy must not be very smart. The commissioners didn’t set up the table, it was the election judges at the site. Half of them were Democrats. If he’s looking to place blame half of it is on his own party. What a moron.

JoeCool,
I am a democrat, but I have to agree with you on this one. The blame seems to lie with the election judges. I guess the question would be, did the Board of Election officials drag their feet in correcting the problem?

Here’s what could have happened–Perhaps the mayor did not indicate that the judges could have more space than they were initially allotted, but they should have asked a city official before short-changing voters in favor of their break area.

The Election Board depends on calls from judges or roving deputies or even the public to alert them to such issues. Criticizing the commissioners was unfair unless Congressman Clay can show that they knew about the problem and deliberately took no action.

Democrats are salivating at their opportunity to replace election commissioners in January. That will be particularly unfortunate in St. Louis City where the commissioners, management and staff have worked in a bi-partisan and transparent way to provide great service to the voters. Hopefully, the new board will protect the solid reputation that the BOE now enjoys.

You’re right Joe Cool. I worked as an election judge, and we are the ones responsible for setting up the room and ALL of the election machines/booths. Not the election commissioners. The election judges are made up of an equal amount of Democrat and Republican VOLUNTEERS (not election board personnel)working as poll workers, assistant supervisors and supervisors. At some point during the day roving deputies come around to all of the polling places to check that everything is going well and running smoothly. I suspect that’s when the problem was discovered. I can’t imagine why they thought a “banquet” table set up in a polling room for their convenience and comfort was a priority over setting up voting booths. We all took a short lunch break and went to another part of the building to eat. Lacy Clay is either ignorant with regard to who’s in charge of what, or he’s just looking for an excuse, as a Democrat, to blame Republicans for something.

Blunt’s county election commissioners should have stressed to the poll workers that every voting booth delivered must be used….The location was inadequate. The rooms were too small even if the 14 hour volunteer poll workers didn’t eat.

Did you ever consider the Republican commissioners wanted to discourage North County voters by creating long lines?

I ran a polling site, and really, we had plenty of room. Mostly because we made room. We had to in order to accomodate the numbers. We turned our room around from normal, and if the site’s equipment and stuff was in our way, we moved it. They have some one to put it back.

While I don’t agree with a buffet table being set up for the staff, seriously, the table probably could only have accommodated 2 or 3 more polling stations. So if you say three, times 5 voters per hour at the most (and these are VERY generous numbers), the most that they could have processed extra through there was a little under 200 people. And they were saying they had upto 600 people, so the buffet table is only a small - very small - element of the issue.

Clay should keep his pie hole shut on this, and the Mayor is obviously looking for someone to blame for not having provided adequate space for the polls - in a district that HE SHOULD KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE GOING TO VOTE IN (I mean, he is an elected official, isn’t he?). The Mayor - shame on you - these are the same people that are going to be voting on YOU next time.

If I had been running that station and saw how bad it was, I would have took the food down for sure, put up the other polling stations, used the [buffet] table and whatever other table space I could fit into the other room, and for added measure, if I had to, I would have kicked the mayor’s door in and used his desk as a polling station, and let him thank me later, when he saw that the voters knew they had his support in getting through the crisis by sacrificing his office. What a sad mayor to have even come out and said this stuff publicly. If he was any kind of man, he would have talked to the BOE, but didn’t need to throw it to the press so that everyone else digs talons in. Poll workers deserve better than that. And I bet he wonders why no one wants to accept assignment at his place next time. What a sad sad sad little man.

Actually, I am VERY proud of all of the poll workers that I was honored to have working with me. They REALLY did a good job everywhere that I am aware of, and so while this is one horror story too many, there is always a chance to do it again, and learn from the mistakes. And no matter what they had to go through - the voters there have proven that they are simply the GREATEST voters around.

Lacy Clay is an idiot. This fiasco had absolutely nothing to do with the Election Commissioners. The fault all lies with the poll workers in Velda City.

At the polling place where I worked, we set up all of our voting booths and machines and would gladly have crammed in more if there had been any room for them. We didn’t have room, nor did we have enough electrical outlets to do so. As it was, we weren’t able to turn on the lights for two of the privacy booths we did set up.

Most of us didn’t even get lunch breaks on Election Day, let alone having a lavish buffet table. I wolfed down about half of my lunch sitting on the floor behind the City Council dais around 3:45 in the afternoon after we’d voted about 1,000 people.

Fire the Velda City election workers and leave the Election Commissioners alone. They train us well–it’s not their fault when some of us fail the public’s trust so spectacularly.

Mantelli - what kind of facility were you at? My understanding is that the City Hall is smaller. So technically, the BOE could have tried to find a better spot. I would NEVER let my guys set up a table specifically for food, although there is a counter in my space, so we could have technically done something like that. Still, knowing that the lines were going to be long, and that we would have to most likely eat discreetly in the place we were, I wouldn’t want a diabetic voter going insane walking past a chow line after standing for two or three hours. Our lines, fortunately, processed VERY fast comparatively, and I know that the voters were VERY cooperative because either myself or my High School helper were always moving down to the back of the line when it was at its longest so that when the people at the back couldn’t see the front, at least they knew that there was a runner out there to send a message to the inside if they needed to, and if someone inside was making it to the back of the line, at least they felt the line was that much shorter. I think there was a bunch of mistakes by the poll workers, but really, is it any of the Mayor’s, or the public’s business? Or Clay’s after the fact? The public already knows that it went horribly wrong. I bet the workers knew it too.

All that should have been said is that “the people of Velda City, despite ENORMOUS challenges not seen in greater America, were not to be denied their votes, and so they stuck it out ALL THE WAY. They are the GREATEST voters in the Midwest, and possibly the country, for what they endured to make sure that even when there is a bump in the road of public confidence in the voting process, that they were proof positive of what Americans are made of.”

I don’t care which party they were there to vote for. Rhey are simply THE GREATEST. Any other issue can be resolved by the board, which did a great job overall, before the next election to ensure that this never happens that way there again. But dragging old folks through the mud in public, who volunteered to do the job of judging in a tough precinct? I think that’s a tough call. The election process can and should be a wide open, transparent event. But staffing issues? I would make some staffing changes at the site behind closed doors, for sure, but why does the selfishness of the Mayor and Clay have to be played out? What do you think?