A few minutes later, a new Sequoia staff person enters the server room and takes over the terminal. He does some work, spends some time explaining something to a City staff person, and then makes a phone call. Then the original Sequoia staff person takes over the terminal again, and he too explains something to the City staff person. A third Sequoia staff person, a woman who has been sitting all evening at a terminal on the central workdesk, leans over to compare what's on his screen to what's on hers.
About 9:50 pm, the problem, if any, appears to have been solved, because someone in the room sends a forty-three-page report to the printer next to the window. Another copy is printed a few minutes later.
However, at a far terminal, the third Sequoia staff person continues to type away intently at the terminal where he has been sitting most of the evening. Occasionally, he pencils some notes onto a sheet of paper. Five people gather around him as he works for about twenty minutes straight, seemingly on the same task. I can't read what's on his screen (it's near the other side of the room, plus I can see it only edge-on); but at one point the screen showed what appeared to be a message box with a red dot in the upper left corner.
At about 10:20 pm the Sequoia staff person apparently finished his task. He got up and breezed out through the server-room door, into the room where I was stationed. As he exits the server room, someone shouts to him, "Thank you!"
What did all this hubbub mean? My guess is that a problem or two cropped up, and the Sequoia staff people took care of it.
At 10:25 pm I tell Mark I'll be leaving at 10:30 pm. He asks me if I'd like a report of the latest overall vote totals for each candidate, and I say yes. He goes into the server room and has a Sequoia staff person print a copy for me. At 10:30 pm, Mark accompanies me to the security desk in the lobby. I sign out and leave for home.
Recommendation:
To improve election transparency, allow the public to hear as well as observe what's happening in the server room.
1 | 2
