No Fraud in Philly: Ballot-counters and Election Observers Reflect

Philadelphia danced itself into the national spotlight again this year, as videos circulated around the country, showing that Beyoncé’s voice will thunder over crowds even during a pandemic. Jay Sand, a 48-year-old West Philadelphia resident, spent this year’s election week working as a “Data Services Clerk.” Sand first moved to Philadelphia in 1990 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. In 2009 Sand founded “All Around This World”, where he teaches multicultural music to children ages 0-9 and their families. While most of his time at the Convention Center was spent holed up in a room that “felt like a factory,” Sand managed to briefly enjoy the crowd’s atmosphere on his way in and out of his mail-in ballot processing shifts. “It didn't feel like there was standoff tension. It just felt like a party.”

Once inside, Sand and his fellow volunteers weren’t exposed to crowds again until they left. They were audibly, visually, and technologically cut off from the outside (there was a very strict no phone policy). According to Sand, the labor requirement could be described as “unlimited amount of hours needed.” The staggering piles of ballots that needed sorting, flattening, and counting were daunting and mundane, but that fortunately helped Sand fall into an almost mechanical rhythm. Sand described occasional breaks in the monotony, spotting some small things that would add a personal touch to the process. Sand would get a small grin out of finding the name of a friend or neighbor while alphabetizing ballots, but his most memorable experience was discovering the ballot of a 100-year old-woman. While inspiring, that discovery came with a pang

of sadness for Sand. The only reason that he knew her age was because she had filled in her birthday instead of the date she mailed her ballot in, which could have potentially disqualified her vote (Sand isn’t sure what happened to it, as it was put aside for an official to look over). “We were all trying our best and I really wanted to get it right, and not from the fear of getting on the news, but because of the idea that people cared so much, especially about this election. You definitely wanted these people to be able to say what they wanted to say. Those old ladies also put their names on their card. They care about their issues.”

As well as people’s votes being voided due to errors, Sand also had a front row seat to see all of the lawyers (from both parties) involved in observing and maintaining the integrity of the ballot counting. So when the allegations of fraud—especially in Philadelphia—began to appear, Sand had a strong hunch that they couldn’t be justified, not with all the legal scrutiny he was seeing around him.

While Sand wasn’t actually a lawyer overseeing the counting, Sarah Tarlow, Associate Attorney at Spear Wilderman, is—and she fully agrees with him. This year, Tarlow was observing canvassing (mail in ballot counting) in Montgomery County, as well as working in “the Boiler Room” in Delaware County. While it isn’t actually a specific room, let alone one with a boiler, the Boiler Room that Tarlow was working in is still enough to make a person sweat. It’s a job that entails constant phone calls from poll watchers needing an attorney to give them advice or to solve problems. Are there on-duty police present? They can only be there in limited exceptions. Are there enough provisional ballots? Is there electioneering (advocating for or against a candidate/party), ten feet from the polling location? What even constitutes a polling location? “I knew that it