More Ohio news: Some ballots counted twice

[spotbird]

Sandusky County elections officials discovered some ballots in the Nov. 2 election were counted twice.

The finding further emphasizes the fact that the 49-vote lead Republican challenger Irma Celestino has over Democratic incumbent Anna Senior isn't the final word. That race will be decided when provisional, military or remade ballots are counted and the official count is taken Thursday. It is not known how much of an impact it might have had on any other unofficial count.

*skip*

"Clyde had 131 percent voting," Tuckerman said. "That's not possible. I knew there was something amiss."

*skip*

Tuckerman said the Secretary of State's office advised against investigating how many twice-counted ballots are included in the election's unofficial results and instead suggested the local board focus on determining the official election results.

*more*

http://www.thenews-messenger.com/news/stories/20041116/localnews/1601347.html

[Pithy Cherub]

1. At what point does the incremental

evidence that the entire voting system's flaws/failures add up to reforming the entire system? Of course, that would mean that there was a free press out there somewhere that wanted to cover it in depth rather name that issue in 6 words or less by more than one reporter!

[Pirate Smile]

2. Please send this to Keith Olberman and David Shuster and anyone

else in the rest of the media who may actually give a damn (I don't know who that would be).

Is this generally a repub or dem county?

[Hunter1952]

6. Olbermann

Olberman? I don't think he wants anything to do with this anymore. He got burned a few days ago and cannot afford it again. Remember: he has an audiance to keep and turth be told not all of them are interested in Ohio.

[IAMREALITY]

7. Yeah, Right,

That's why even while he is on vacation he has his replacement following the story, as she did last night.

Olbermann will continue to report all new details that arise, No Doubt.

[LisaLynne]

12. I think you might be referring to ...

something that was later revealed to be a joke. Sorry to disappoint you, but Olbermann still seems to be fighting for the truth.

[jhgatiss]

14. Truth be told..

I bet Olbermann's audience quadrupled at least when he started covering all of this. To stop covering it now would be folly.

[Pirate Smile]

15. No, he doesn't care what Scaife's rag prints. He is on top of this. He

seems to expect to get fired from every job at some point so he would probably love to go out in a blaze of glory.

This is a true story. These are facts. Why not report them? Has the friggin world gone insane? No, don't answer that, I know the answer.

[MrUnderhill]

18. How exactly did he "get burned"??

I think some of his numbers are "pie in the sky", but that isn't the same thing.

[m berst]

35. come again?

Some of "his" numbers are "pie in the sky?"

Explain what you mean by that.

[MrUnderhill]

36. No offense intended.

Maybe I've got him mixed up with someone else, but I was under the impression the he was assuming that 90% of the provisionals would be counted and that they would break 90% for Kerry... and that a similar percentage of spoiled ballots would have discernible votes and they would ALSO break 90% for Kerry.

Which would give Kerry Ohio by around 30k votes.

Those numbers are ridiculous in the extreme. We've seen what can be gleaned from punch card ballots (in Florida) and it isn't going to be nearly that high a vote-recovery, nor could it break that heavily in our direction.

[m berst]

39. you are making an assumption here

You assume that having it "break our direction" is what this is about.

That is not the case for me. One stolen or suppressed vote is a problem for me, regardless of who it was cast for. Tens of thousands of questions about mishandled or suppressed votes - and I think that we can say without fear of contradiction that this is most certainly the case - is a big problem - a much bigger problem then worrying about which direction things might or might not break.

[txindy]

20. That's news to me

I've been following Keith and this story very closely and you are making claims that bear no resemblance to anything I've seen. Keith is on vacation, one that was planned back in August. His show's ratings have done quite well since he broke this story and his temporary replacement is carrying it forward. Keith, himself, is blogging on the voting questions while on vacation.

Care to clarify what you mean? I'm very curious.

[Straight Shooter]

24. Please keep up with Olbermann's blog

Disinformation isn't welcome on Democratic Underground.

Thank you very much

[nolabels]

31. Yea, but remember he knows what they all think

:scared:

Assuming is is mostly okay if it's like to say "rain comes from he sky" .............after that your on your own round here. :-)

[Old and In the Way]

34. RNC getting worried Hunter1952?

[fearnobush]

37. Is that what the official memo said? I think not.

[Jasper 91]

3. How could they not realise they were counting ballots

That had been counted before? I'm constantly dumbfounded by the gross incompetence displayed by so many SOS's election officials. But while there is no accountability, there is no reason to change, especially given that the Repugs are on the beneficial receiving end of all the 'glitches'.

[LisaL]

4. Hey, did anybody notice this sentense

"This morning, the board met to officially decide which ballots cannot be counted and to remake ballots".
WTF does it mean?
How are they going to "remake ballots"?

[Dancing_Dave]

8. If that's not a dead give-away for election fraud

I don't know what is!:yourock:

[MarkusQ]

9. It seems odd, but is explained

From the article:

Among those waiting to be counted are 58 ballots that were torn, damaged, had stray marks or where voters did not follow instructions, including cases where ovals were not only colored in but also circled. Elections board members today will remake those damaged ballots so they can be fed through the machines.

I would hope that it's done with lots of witnesses.

--- MarkusQ

P.S. *smile* It would be interesting to see if the results of running those 58 ballots through the machines is the same as you'd get manually adding them to the previous totals.

[LisaL]

11. I don't like them "remaking ballots".

Is that even legal? It shouldn't be.
They should count them by hand if they are damaged, not "remake them".
Geez!

[ParanoidPat]

13. There were many reports that people who filled out provisional ballots

were told to fold them to get them to fit into the 'security envelopes'. In cases where the provisional ballots were the 'optical scan' variety, the law allows those ballots to be 're-made' as in the information is carefully transferred to fresh, non folded ballots that will not have a problem being run through the scanners. There are (or at least should be) witnesses from both parties to their creation.

[LisaL]

40. This law sounds completely crazy.

And a huge potential for FRAUD.
I am amazed it's legal. It would take less time for somebody to hand count the ballots than to "remake" it.
If you start remaking the ballots, what do you do with the old ones?
Do you destroy them?

[Hobbes199]

26. Caught it

Sounds illegal, no? Then they have multiple ballots supposedly from the same person? They should either reject the ballot or accept it; if the machine can't read it then it needs to be hand counted.

[IAMREALITY]

5. Ughhhhhhh

I think there are about 61 million of us (real votes) that should waltz on down to Ohio and count the damn ballots ourselves. This is getting wayyyyy too out of hand.

[lizzieforkerry]

10. I agree! I fugure I could have siglehandedly counted all of the ballots

in Ohio by now! How hard could it be?

[driver8]

16. I am sick that this is our democracy in action...

Good God, is this what has become of the democratic process?? How hard it is to have people cast a vote and then to count those votes?

I cannot believe the blatant examples of fraud, voter suppression, and manipulation.

What pisses me off even more is that this crap is accepted as "ok."

[MrUnderhill]

19. I'm afraid that would be...

About five ballots per second without breaks for eating, sleeping, or the bathroom - 24/7.

[lizzieforkerry]

22. What are you saying- you couldn't do it?

I'm an insomniac that really needs to go on a diet. That will take care of the bathroom thing. Just give me one of those hats with the drinks and straws and I could probably count the absentee in the bathroom come to think of it.

[Hobbes199]

27. Maybe 20 of us then?

[jhgatiss]

17. I could always clean up the floor in my spare room...

and the Cobb camp is looking for volunteers!

I am disturbed by this story as well though!

[burn the bush]

21. we would have had a better election count if we just herded people into

rooms and having them raise their hands. We could have done better with a 99cent calculator. This is just so so stupid.

[John Q. Citizen]

23. The question I have is how could nine precincts have accidentally

counted ballots twice?

Sandusky uses optical scanners. The ballots are marked by voters and then fed into the reading machine. The machine totals are sent over telephone lines to the county tabulators.

The ballots are stored in the machine. How would nine precincts count ballots twice?

I may be missing something here or but this is where I'm lost.

Whoops on edit. This is a centrally counted county, so I suppose at the county they could have counted them twice. Still it sounds a little sloppy.

Sandusky County Detail: Election Official Contact

Voting Technology: Optical Scan: Central Count
Vendor: Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S)
Data Source: CASE-ohio.org
Last Verified: 4-Sep

http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/map.php?topic_string=5std&state=ohio&county=Sandusky



The remaking thing is no big deal and is done so the vote counts because the precinct scanner couldn't read it in original form.

[truehawk]

25. If you were shaving the vote and still loosing, you would then add lumps

of votes.

And if turnout is high the precinct will show more than 100 percent turnout.

[spotbird]

28. I don't understand how the SoS's office can

tell them not to focus on a mistake, just come up with an official count.

Isn't it illegal for the SoS to certify results he has been notified are in error?

[truehawk]

29. Neither Can I

[truehawk]

30. Kick

[truehawk]

32. Kick

[truehawk]

33. WA state 6200 votes counted twice from Republican District

County Auditor Vern Spatz said the ballots were counted correctly, but approximately 6,200 votes were counted twice because of human error while transferring data to the computer reporting system. The Aberdeen Daily World first reported the re-count on Tuesday.

Most of the results that were entered twice were apparently from east Grays Harbor County -- an area which is considered more Republican.

[glitch]

38. Starting to see a trend here. nt