Each team of coders is led by an experienced NORC employee and contains two other coders recruited in Florida specifically for the ballot review project. The intensive screening and training process for the new recruits took place in Florida over about a week at the beginning of the project. The training process stressed the following major requirements of the coding work:

1. The coder should keep in mind at all times that his/her job is not to perform an election recount, but to code his/her individual observations of the marks on the particular types of ballots being observed. The training emphasized that coders are not asked to decide whether any ballot has a vote or does not have a vote, simply to describe and classify what they see on the ballot.

2. The coder’s observations are to be made independently of the observations of other members of the coding team. There is to be no communication between coders during the observation process.

3. Coders are to view the ballots but may not touch them. Coders will be seated on one side of a table, with the country employee assigned to show the ballot on the other side. Coders may ask the county employee to turn the ballot at any time and in any manner that will enable them to view the ballot better.

4. Since counties are likely to differ in their receptiveness to NORC researchers, the way their operations are set up, and their general attitude toward the process, coders should be as flexible and accommodating as possible, as long as they are not asked to compromise the integrity of the process in any way.