The High Turnout Wide Margins team recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, for a special workshop on State Associations hosted by the Election Center. While there, we were able to have face-to-face conversations with people working in elections across the country.
In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Mark Coakley. He’s the General Registrar of Henrico County, Virginia.
They spoke about Mark’s long history working in elections and the unique way that local election administrators in Virginia are setting their own educational priorities and learning from each other.
High Turnout, Wide Margins Credits:
Managing Editor: Rebecca Smith
Managing Producer: Aaron Hay
Associate Producer: Katie Quinn
Digital Producer: Mark Johnson
Transcription of the episode is as follows:
Mark Coakley: We have five early voting sites in Henrico, and I can't bring out multiple ballots for each ballot style trying to guess who's going to show up where. So, for the early voting, absentee voting – we have a ballot on demand printers that we use, and when we check into the pole pads, our electronic poll books, we print out a ballot and we hand it to the voters saying, “This ballot was made just for you.”
[High Turnout Wide Margins Introduction]
Eric Fey: Welcome back everyone to another exciting episode of High Turnout Wide Margins. I'm Eric Fey, Director of Elections in St. Louis County, Missouri, and I'm here with my co-host –
Brianna Lennon: Brianna Lennon. I’m the County Clerk in Boone County, Missouri.
Eric Fey: And on this episode, our guest is – Mark, introduce yourself.
Mark Coakley: Hi, I'm Mark Coakley from Henrico, Virginia. Elections Director over there.
Eric Fey: So, Mark from Henrico, which I love that pronunciation, tell us how did you get involved in elections?
Mark Coakley: Sure thing. So, I started off in Greensboro, North Carolina. Guilford County. And I was still in school, I was on an eight-year college program, and my minister – her husband was the elections director, George Gilbert, and behind the altar on my wedding day, I said, “Hey, I'm getting married, I need a job,” and he said, “Come work for me.” And I think there, we were – like four or five interns he hired have come to be elections directors throughout North Carolina and Virginia.
So, I started off in 1996 as the intern. I thought I was there just to empty the water containers, and my first phone call was a person who missed the polls at the ‘96 primary, presidential primary, and since all I've done before is just empty water containers, I said, “Well, do I go pick her up and take her to the polls? She missed her ride?” And I was told “No,” you know, “you find a phone number and give it to them.” So, we've always been related to customer service and voter experience. That's what I've grown up on working in elections.
Brianna Lennon: So, there's a few reasons why I wanted to talk to somebody from Virginia, but before we get into that, I was hoping that you could give a summary overview of how elections are structured in the state of Virginia.
Mark Coakley: Sure thing. So, in Virginia, we have 133 localities. Cities are independent from counties. So, 133 localities. We have a three-member board [sic] that's picked by the party reps, party chairs for each locality. Two are of the governor’s [party] and one is of the opposite party of the governor, and they oversee elections and appoint registrar's election directors. So, I was appointed by a three-member board. It's a four-year term. I had to break the news to my wife when I got this job that I was appointed – it's a four-year term. It's not just a lifelong position. And so, elections are run locally. We do have a State Board of Elections – five members – and they oversee the Department of Elections. ELECT is what it's called in Virginia. And it's good. It's a mix of top down, bottom up working relationship with the state and localities.
Eric Fey: So, it's my understanding in Virginia, the Registrar's Association, the acronym is VRAV is that right?
Mark Coakley: VRAV.
Eric Fey: So, I love that because in St. Louis, one of the most popular St. Louis foods are toasted raviolis, which a lot of people call TRAVs. So, whenever I hear about VRAV, all I think of are toasted raviolis, but –
Mark Coakley: I might have to try that.
Eric Fey: Yeah, yeah. They're pot. I’ve never met –
Brianna Lennon: That’s the most St. Louis thing you've ever said.
Eric Fey: I’ve never met anybody who didn't like TRAVs, so…
Mark Coakley: We're gonna have that in August at our at our meeting.
Eric Fey: There you go. You should have TRAVs at VRAV. That would be awesome. So, tell us a little bit about V rev and how its structured, what it does?
Mark Coakley: Okay, so with our association, VRAV, it's for the registrars, election directors. The electoral board has its own association, also the three members, and they're called VEBA. So, you have VEBA and VRAV.
We have a president, first vice president, and we have seven regions in Virginia in our 133 localities, and the seven regions has its own regional director. We have our own listserv where we can talk among ourselves privately through like Teams and things like that. We meet once a year for our association, and then when VEBA has their meeting there, they're more fancier, they meet at the homestead – if anybody's familiar with the homestead, probably not. So, we do have a meeting at their association also. It's very good.
We just changed our budgeting format for dues and membership – it's now based on population. So, Fairfax County in Virginia has the largest county that we have, locality we have. So, anywhere from, I think it's 250,000 up to Fairfax, we pay a certain amount, and then it just breaks down by population. Of the 133 localities, there's only 18 of us that are over 100,000. So, a lot more, a lot of small, middle-sized counties make up most of our association.
Brianna Lennon: So, Virginia – I'm sure there are other states that do this, too – but Virginia is the one that always sticks in my head is you're statutorily required to do precinct level results for things.
Mark Coakley: That is correct. We have precinct level ballots. So, every precinct gets its own ballot style.
Brianna Lennon: So, about how many precincts – like for your jurisdiction – how many precincts do you have?
Mark Coakley: So, we have 90 precincts in Henrico County. When we have dual primaries and we have split precincts, I had over 200 ballot styles to deal with.
Brianna Lennon: So, how do you handle that in situations when you have early voting where anybody could come in, or you have a central polling location – presumably not vote centers, but like we have central polling locations? I know that equipment can lift a lot of that, but what exactly does the process look like for you to staff up locations that have to serve everybody?
Mark Coakley: That’s a great point and question. So, with our 200 ballot styles, we have five early voting sites in Henrico, and I can't bring out multiple ballots for each ballot style, trying to guess who's going to show up where. So, for the early voting, absentee voting – we have a ballot on demand printers that we use. And when we check into the poll pads, our electronic poll books, we print out a ballot and we hand it to the voters saying, “This ballot was made just for you,” and they really like that. They think they're special. We again, get your name and ID and check in and then a ballot just automatically prints. So, we don't have 200 plus ballots going to our five locations.
Ballot security is an issue. When they question, “Why are you printing a ballot just for me?” Then we can get into the details of that. Now on election day, every precinct gets its own ballot, right? Precinct 101, it's going to have the title “Precinct 101” written on that ballot. The logistical nightmare we found out was if we're running low in one precinct, we can't borrow from Peter to pay Paul, right? We have to make sure we have enough ballots just for that precinct. And so, what is your percent turnout going to be? What is it based on, you know, statistics from past previous years, or just order 100% for every precinct? Knowing so many people voted early also. It's been more of a fiscal challenge than anything else at the precinct level. For the early voting sites, the ballot on demand has really helped out a lot.
Brianna Lennon: For smaller places – because when you were talking about how, you know smaller cities and the number of jurisdictions that have pretty small number of voters – do they have fewer ballot styles? Or are they having to deal with a similar issue, but maybe just not scaled like yours?
Mark Coakley: They would either scale down. We have localities that still have paper poll books. So, they really can't do a ballot on demand at our small localities. So, they will have all their ballot styles – maybe 10 to 12, if you think about a precinct. I'm thinking some of our cities that have seven precincts. So, you know they could just have 14 ballot style, something like that for a primary election. They can handle that and handle the ballot security of having all those paper ballots stored in their site location for an early voting period.
Eric Fey: Mark, is it always the case that there is one precinct at a polling location or sometimes are there multiple precincts at a polling location?
Mark Coakley: We have a one-on-one situation. So, every precinct will have a polling place attached to it. Now, we do have polling facilities with two precincts in them – some schools there's two precincts that will vote in the school, one in the gym and one in the cafeteria, but they are completely separate from each other. We just couldn't find a facility to cover both precincts. So, we just have them in one building. We do have a law in Virginia that there's a size maximum for a precinct, for the number of voters – of 5000. So, that's why I can't merge the two precincts together, but I can make one a gym and one a cafeteria.
Eric Fey: That’s good. So, you're never in a situation where on election day, at those precincts, the poll workers at the table have more than one type of ballots?
Mark Coakley: That's right. We're not handing out 202 for 101. They are separate locations. And again, each ballot style, the way they've been designed is to have the title of your precinct – a number – on the top and bottom, where it gives your statistics about, you know, the House race, the Senate race, Congressional order. It'll say the precinct number down there, too. And again, we just love to hand out the ballots saying, “This ballot was made just for you,” along with your “I Voted” sticker.
Brianna Lennon: Do you have a – I know that every state has different rules about the voting equipment – but is there different voting equipment in different places in Virginia? Or is everyone on the same type?
Mark Coakley: We have four certified voting equipment vendors in Virginia. They have to go through state certification. We do follow the voluntary standard from the EAC, and I know we're getting ready to go to 2.0. Hopefully sooner rather than later. So, four different vendors of voting equipment are in Virginia. We are all, though, of the four, all optical scan. We have no more touchscreen units. I think the last touchscreen voting machines we had was 2015, and then we went to all optical scan after that.
Eric Fey: What about you? Were you a touchscreen county or were you always optical scan?
Mark Coakley: I was a touchscreen. We started off in 2005 and went through ’15 with the touchscreen. I will say the touchscreen is great for the voters. I mean voters love to find a ways to spoil a ballot, right? Touchscreen was more difficult for them to spoil a ballot, but on an optical scan machine – the poll workers duties and responsibilities are much easier. They flip a switch, they open a lid, the machine turns on. So, I'm much more in favor of optical scan machines for the poll worker perspective of what they have to manage, even though they're managing all these paper ballots, the setup and the cleanup afterwards has greatly reduced time and mistakes on their part.
Eric Fey: Do you run into any particular challenges when you were making that transition from touchscreen to paper essentially?
Mark Coakley: I did not like the fact that we were going backwards. I think that was, you know, the national stay was, “Oh, you're going backward. Paper from a computer,” and I never liked that narrative. I like the fact that we can now, everybody can hold their ballot, right? We have a curbside outside polls voting, and we would have to take a touchscreen unit to their car, and I always said, “Stand in front of the car so they don't drive away,” right? And everybody laughed until someone tried to drive away with one of our touchscreen units. Paper ballots – they drive away – they're not gonna vote, they've lost their chance So, the security and then the issues around that, again, is why I like the paper ballot, the holding of the ballots.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Mid-break]
Brianna Lennon: Like with all of the different requirements for things and having them all very granular level, if there has been any movements to maybe not have to do – like allow combinations of it – I know, campaigns really like to get that information, analysts like to get that information, but other states, kind of ours included, don't require that fine level of detail. Have there been conversations in Virginia to consolidate any of those?
Mark Coakley: No, actually, it's more of expansion of those areas. We went to this precinct-based ballot, where we have to have our voter turnout on Thursday after election for the precincts and for our absentee voting. So, your election, elected officials and the consultants will know, in an early voting situation, how many voted in precinct 10, in the Richfield precinct. They want that, you know, quick, you know, right after the election, to move on and get their data for the next time around and to know who their constituents are, you know, who voted in what race – especially a primary or the general election. So, we have to have quick turnaround with our election night reporting, and then the election results with voter turnout by precinct. So, we're trying to be more of an expansion area, get as much data out there to the candidates and consultants as possible.
Eric Fey: Mark, at lunch, you told this great story about your experience in the 2000 election. Because I would, I'm not trying to say you're old, but you're one of the few folks now that was around for the 2000 election, and, you know, that was a watershed moment for election administrators. But your experience was maybe a little different. So, share with the listenership, such that it is, what was it like working in elections in 2000? And then after 2000?
Mark Coakley: Sure, one of the things is – we’re renovating our office, I found a letter from 1999, from Doug Lewis of the Election Center, saying “In 2000, let's take a trip to Greece,” right? The Election Center, we wanted to go to the birthplace of democracy, let's go to Greece. And then November of 2000 happened and there was no mention of leaving states, more or less the country with election officials.
The story I tell is – it was raining that November of 2000, and we had optical scan paper ballots that the precinct officials brought back it just a cardboard box. They just scooped them up, put them in a box and send them back to our office that night. With the rain the boxes got wet. A box opened and ballots spilled all over our wet parking lot. And we're laughing, scooping them up – the precinct officials are scooping them up trying to find a dry box to put them in. No seals, no signature, no ballot count on them. Just in a box. And then after watching Florida have to bring everything up to Tallahassee in those huge metal containers, you know, the times changed. The times changed on the spot between that November and then when the Supreme Court made their decision in early December. But there's been no talk of Greece since then, at all – even though I still half the letter saying that we were going to go
Brianna Lennon: Do you think, I mean, given Virginia's proximity to DC – do you think that you get a fair amount of like DC pressure to do certain things a certain way? Or when there are conversations at the federal level that change elections – Virginia legislature gets ideas and tries to do things?
Mark Coakley: Yes, I do. In the DC, Virginia, Maryland area – we call it the DMV, and we're so close with such major media markets that voters do get confused about what a Maryland law is, when the polls open in Virginia, if it's snowing in DC and it closes down and the polling place – how's that affect even down where I am in Richmond? I get voter calls saying, “I hear a polling place is closed,” you know, “what are you doing about it?” And I have no idea.
So, the media markets and the legislatures from national level in DC – the federal government and both Maryland and our state of the Commonwealth of Virginia – we just have to really be more specific about just what applies to each voter. Richmond has a market of 11 different localities and we're all different. Our commissioner says a Big Mac in Richmond ought to be the same as a Big Mac in Washington County, you know, we should have uniformity, but you can't really have uniformity in elections, as we all know. We can try to have our Big Macs, but we do need to have that little bit of individualism to conform with the voters needs and wants.
Eric Fey: Mark, the other thing I've been wanting to bring up in this interview is – going back to VRAV because I'm very big on the VRAV – the kind of “unconference” or open conference a year or so ago, a couple of years ago, I heard this concept for the first time at an Election Center event that you all in Virginia had kind of gone with this new concept at your state conference that was kind of “make it up as you go.” That's not a great name for it, but, you know, it was kind of open-ended and then the members kind of drove at the conference what the topics would be and so forth. You mentioned that you were a little skeptical at first, but maybe came around to it. So, can you talk about that experience, and if you would suggest it for other states?
Mark Coakley: Sure, so in elementary school – I went to a Catholic school where you just sat at your desk with your hands folded and you stared directly at the nun for the whole day, and that's what I grew up on education. That's what I learned. Going to an open forum of training where each table makes their own topics and goes on – I was skeptical. I'm a big believer in it now. Again, the death of the PowerPoint has really influenced me. I love my 100 slides for a two-hour training, and you're just not going to get that anymore. People are not going to sit for that. Not stand for it but sit for that long. Knowing that you are in control is a big thing, too, and that's what we tell everybody, with the open forum, is you get to be in control of what you're going to learn today. It's a collaboration through everybody. It's just not given to you in a brochure saying, “Here's your 10:00 to 11:00 training. Here's your 1:00 to 3:00 class,” you know, we get to make it up and we get to train ourselves and learn from each other. And I think that's the best aspect of this open forum is the collaboration training. I still haven't gotten over the number tables where you're assigned a table number. I still want to stick with my clan, stick with my group, you know, my soulmates, but having to sit in the front row now – which I've never done before – but table two, because my last names ends in a “C,” you know, if it's alphabetical, I’m at table two right up front, you know, it’s gotten me out of my comfort zone also, and again, I really do appreciate it. The fact that we are learning from each other, and we are opening up the forum.
Some of the topics that have come up – the COOP plan, you know, “Continue of Operations,” I mean, it used to be if there was a power outage, you got a generator, right? But then where do you get that generator? Who makes that phone call? Things like that. So, learning about COOP plans from – just who knew was gonna be this popular – and today, we found that it was pretty popular. Security newbies have been a good one where the turnover rate is so high in elections. It really is. The good news is that we're finding out with the turnover rate, we're hiring from within, right? We're not, you know, we have the approach of, you know, train your deputies, train your staff, empower them to take the leadership role in the next locality over. So, we're not coming from – I want to say Sears, but I guess there's no more Sears – so, you know, we're not coming from the Walmart to elections, you know, we're coming from within, and then we're building that base. But there is still a hand holding that we need, and topics like that – the newbie topic and then the COOP plan are two of the ones that I found that I never would have sat through if I saw that on the brochure, you know, at the registration desk, but helping us come up with that and say, “Look, we really need to talk about that and that should be a topic that we're all concerned about,” and that's what that's what's really helped us.
Eric Fey: There's probably not a lot in elections you haven't seen. So, moving into this year's presidential election in November, what, if anything, is keeping you up at night?
Mark Coakley: I’ll tell you what's keeping me up at night is the public comments at our staff meetings, the board meetings that we have for Henrico County, where staff, or the public will say, “I already don't have confidence what's going to happen in November.” You know, how can they say that in April? That they have no confidence? And, you know, and what can I do? You know, how can I convince you who lives next to me, sees my license plate, you know, sees my house, knows when I come and go that you don't have confidence in what I'm doing nine months later, you know? And that's just and that's why that story needs to be told. And we need to be on podcasts, and we need to be out there, and we need to have the association really plug the positives that we do and the success stories that we have in elections.
Brianna Lennon: You've been listening to High Turnout Wide Margins, a podcast that explores local elections administration. I'm your host, Brianna Lennon alongside Eric Fey. A big thanks to KBIA and the Election Center for making this podcast possible. Our Managing Editor is Rebecca Smith. Managing Producer is Aaron hay. Our Associate Producer is Katie Quinn, and our Digital Producer is Mark Johnson. This has been High Turnout Wide Margins. Thanks for listening.
