Hand-Counted Election Formulas
A Ready-to-Use Set of Formulas for You to Adjust for Your County's Criteria
If you are interested in seeing what ECHO or any other hand counted method similar to it would be feasible in your county, feel free to use this excel workbook to get started! Email me for the link if you are interested in running down some scenarios for hand-counting your county’s next major election.
EMAIL ME FOR THE WORKBOOK takingtxback@gmail.com
Here I will post the text contained inside the excel workbook just in case the example shown here is difficult to read, with the entire workbook linked below. This set of formulas comes along with our projected timeline and our recommended strategy for the upcoming primary elections:
Formula for Calculating Hand-Counted Election Scenarios Using the ECHO Hand Counting Method created in Texas by Elizabeth Baron as the recommended method.
(We did not create the ECHO method, but it is the method we endorse as part of our Best Practices. We did create these formulas independent of the ECHO teams for independent verification of feasibility.)
This set of formulas is ready to use in your county projections. We project 3hrs to count a batch of 50 ballots with 35 races.
Step ONE: All inputs in this formula can be adjusted for your county's specific criteria.
This example uses Dallas County, Texas voter numbers, legal grounds, and assumes:
- 4% rise in voter registrations per historical trends
- 8% turnout based on historical trends and has averaged out voters per precinct in EV, ED and Absentee voters
- 50% EV turnout
- 49% ED turnout
- 1% Absentee turnout
- 798 precincts
- 2 batches of 50 ballots per precinct for EV
- 2 batches of 50 ballots per precinct on ED
- 24 batches of 50 ballots for all absentees
- Batches of 50 ballots each
- one counting team of 3 per precinct to count all EV and ED ballots in a timely fashion along
- 3 teams of 3 to count available Absentee ballots on ED and with more time to count the following week while the remaining ballots come in. Total number of absentee batches may differ, as even one ballot from a precinct must be batched for that precinct. These batches will be completed swiftly
- 5 clerks per EV location
- 3 clerks and 1 Judge per ED location
- 3 teams of 3 Central Count Batchers/ Reporting Teams
- Totaling 4328 staffers total to process the Dallas County GOP Primary by Hand Best Case Scenario
All inputs and assumptions can be adjusted using the formulas provided, beginning with the number of registered voters, expected turnout, number of precincts, number of EV and ED polling locations, and your expected turnout percentages for EV, ED and Absentee. After those numbers have been agreed upon and entered into this table, and after adjusting the average number of staffers necessary for your locations or number of ballots you would prefer to batch together if needed, you can then move forward.
Step TWO: Confirm all totals by working the math backwards. Each formula, when double-clicked, will highlight the cells used to determine that specific number for that row.
Step THREE: Consult our outline for Contracting with the County for a Party Primary. We recommend ordering the following from the County elections department, as they are required by law to provide:
- all ballots marked with precinct
- provisional ballots by ballot style and/or precinct
- election kits
- ballot boxes
- poll books
- signage
- mailing out ballots per verified voter applications (this is due to the legal process of applying for an absentee ballot, the GOP parties typically do not have the infrastructure to process those requests and issue a ballot, but they can be there to verify eligibility based on what info is on the application and envelope)
- temporary workers to cover the majority of clerk/ counters
- any miscellaneous items typically utilized in a primary election.
The design here follows this adjustable timeline for counting returns on Election Day:
- Precinct Counting Teams arrive to begin batching at 6am and begin counting their first batch at 7am-11am (3hrs) + 1hr break
- Central Count batching/ reporting teams will finalize EV batches and deliver returns to County Clerk.
- Precinct Counting Teams count second batch at 12pm-3pm (3hrs) +1hr break
- Precinct Counting Teams arrive at ED locations to batch and count first ED batches at 5pm-8pm (3hrs) + 45 min break while ED clerks prepare last batch.
- Precinct Counting Teams begin to count the last batch at 9pm-12am (3hrs)
- ED Judges/ clerks deliver ED precinct returns to County Clerk at 1am.
- County Clerk enters precinct results into county’s reporting database
ECHO is strong enough to withstand bad actors, and any discrepancies will be immediately caught and amended. Those discrepancies can be audited and investigated. If any malicious activity is found, it can be immediately acted upon.
Aubree Campbell
Founder tbtr.us
takingbacktexas.org
takingtxback@gmail.com
The county is supplying a minimum of 2500 Temp workers (our counters) per party per primary, so we will plan on asking for slightly more so that we can count all precincts in time. I plan on asking the county to supply all workers that the county parties cannot supply themselves, and to compensate them for their training on the ECHO method.
You've been a busy little bee! I'm going to request the workbook .