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Bruce Hall
Fort Wayne, IN
December 18, 2004
I was one of the witnesses of the recount in Sandusky County for the “GLib” party candidates on December 15. The Director of the Board of Elections, Barbara Tuckerman (D), told us at the outset that we were not to interfere with the count or stop it in any way. If we had questions that were not answered to our satisfaction we were to make note of them and relay them to our people later. They had prepared a test deck of ballots with a few each of minor party candidates, several each of the major candidates. What I didn’t understand was the proportionally much larger stack of under- and over-voted ballots. When I asked why the stack was so large, it was explained to me but I still didn’t get it, and I asked for clarification. I still didn’t understand, but didn’t want to look like an idiot or like I was trying to put a halt to things, so I made a note of it and hushed up. As near as I could tell, it looked like they were including one under-vote and one over-vote per precinct, or something like that. I didn’t write down the number so I can’t say exactly how many, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and quite disproportionate to number of legitimate test ballots in the deck. After hand counting these ballots and machine counting them, they reconciled the numbers and declared that the machines tested OK and we could proceed with the actual 3% machine vs. hand count test.
Earlier in the morning, I had observed that lists were being given to certain people to choose the precinct they wanted counted. This did not appear right to me, as it was my impression that the selection was to be by a scientifically valid random sampling plan. The scheme they were using certainly wasn’t random. After talking this over with the other two GLib observers present, I recommended to them that we ask for a precinct as well. I believe it was Karen Wagner who made the selection, City of Clyde C. The other precincts that were chosen were Ballville TWP A CV, and Rice TWP. I paid close attention to Clyde C. The hand count matched the machine count after it was discovered that a ballot with a name written in on the write-in line was actually an under-vote by the machine count because the voter had neglected to fill in the bubble in the margin beside the name they had written. We were told we could go to lunch and the full machine recount would begin at one o’clock.
We returned about 1:10 and found the machine count underway. I stationed myself at the same machine that had counted our precinct in the morning, and kept a close eye on what was going on. The machine would stop periodically with a message that a ballot had been found with no vote or too many votes on it, and these were set aside to be judged. One scenario was that there were some ballots where a candidate’s bubble was filled in, as well as the one directly below it on the last line, that for a write-in candidate. The ruling was made that since the line for write-in candidate had been left blank, a white-out sticker would be placed over that bubble so the machine could count it as a vote for the candidate. Due to the rotation of names between precincts county-wide, ballots that were over-voted in this manner would go to various candidates, and if the voter filled in two or more bubbles higher up on the ballot, it was definitely an over-vote. Probably some voters thought they had to vote separately for President and Vice-President, and were filling in the two ovals in the margin closest to their selections. But none of the VP candidates had separate bubbles so there were some spoiled ballots on that score. If a voter had clearly made an effort to erase a bubble and filled in a different one but the machine counted it as an over-vote, it received a white-out sticker on the erased bubble so as to be properly machine counted. A couple of ballots that were machine read as under-votes had all the ovals on the ballot checked instead of filled in, so when this was shown to the judges the decision was made to fill in the bubble where the checkmark was. This all seemed quite fair to me and I was impressed at how well the Democrats and Republicans got along, joking about how much it hurt to repair those types of ballots for the other side, all in good fun. It was surprising to find ballots with most or all of the Presidential candidates’ ovals filled in, or with none filled in at all. Puzzling, but relatively rare, ballots like these that registered no vote for President.
I asked for a copy of the official, certified results. I was told I would have to wait until they were done counting them. I said, no, I wanted the results that they had already sent in to the Secretary of State previously, those results had to be on record somewhere in the building. I was told OK, I could have a copy of that. I said, thank you. Can I have them now, please? I was told everyone was busy, I would have to wait until they were done counting. I said I really needed to have them before the recount was finished, that it was important to me that I have them now. I was polite but firm, and said there were plenty of people just standing around, and I am sure someone could make a copy of the results that had been sent to the SOS for me. So after about the fifth request it was delivered to me, and I thanked them graciously. The certified result for Clyde C was Bush 226. Kerry 212. The hand and machine recount was Bush 226, Kerry 214. I saw how this had happened by means of two of the over-voted ballots being corrected as previously mentioned, and I began to gain a little more confidence that perhaps the vote count was on the square in this county, but I couldn’t swear to it.
I was asked why the recount was requested by the minor party candidates, and said I didn’t know for sure. I said there has been a lot of reports of problems with the election, but I thought that it was in the larger counties and those with touch-screen voting. A man said something to the effect that any county that had those ought to smash them, they were ripe for fraud. I asked if I could quote him on that and he said yes, and I got his name. It was Tom Yonkers.
There are a couple of things about the spoiled ballots that bothers me. One is that in cases where the voter filled in a bubble, then crossed it out and filled in a different one the ballot was deemed an over-vote and no vote for President was recorded. I said it seems that the intent of the voter can be determined, and was told, no, you can’t count those. I didn’t argue the matter, but felt more strongly that this determination was improper when I later found out that the precincts were furnished with pencils that had no erasers. Also, it is my understanding that Nader was not allowed to be counted on the ballot, even though his name appears on it. In some cases Nader’s bubble was filled in as well as that of another candidate. If a Nader vote did not count, shouldn’t the voter’s other choice (Kerry or whoever) be counted?
There was also some talk of people being purged from the voting rolls if they hadn’t voted recently. If they showed up to vote and their name wasn’t on the list but they insisted they had voted before and were registered, they were given a provisional ballot. If their name had been purged, however, I don’t think their vote was counted. Is that right? Also, some provisional ballots were not counted because of not having a signature on the outside envelope. Was there a rule change on that? There were 713 provisional ballots issued, and 617 were ruled valid to count at some previous time. We were told the provisional ballots judged valid were included among those we were recounting.
Interestingly, the two counting machines were ES&S, and even more interesting, there was a memo lying in plain sight on one of the tables with an ES&S letterhead. The memo gave a phone number to call if there were any problems on Novemeber 2, and requested that the election results be called in as soon as possible. Why would they need to know what the results were right away? The machines stored their information on a computer floppy disk drive built into the machine, but printed out the totals on an Okidata dot matrix printer on a table right by each machine. The hand counted precincts had the totals printed at the machine during the 3% test. During the full recount, the printers kept a running total of how many ballots they had counted and each time the counting was stopped when an uncountable ballot was encountered, but they did not print out any totals for the candidates as the recount progressed. I noted that to the person running the machine, and she said yeah, if it did that everyone would crowd around whenever it printed anything. Imagine that! So then I started to think, maybe there is a way this thing can be hacked after all. But I didn’t find any proof of that. The machines did not appear to have telephone lines hooked to them. When the recount was finished, each machine printed a total for the candidates that it had counted in that run, and I made notes of those results. The director took the floppies out of the machines and left the room, saying we should get the final results in about a half an hour. I saw the screen on the computer she was using a little later, it had a heading on it that said, “Unity Election Reporting Manager.” I did a rough calculation, adding the numbers most recently printed together with the ones from the 3 precincts we had counted in the morning, and the numbers were relatively close. After everything was said and done, Bush picked up 26 votes, Kerry picked up 33. The election officials appeared to have done their jobs well, and the added votes were fairly allocated.
Results: Badnarik Bush Kerry Nader Peroutka Write-in over under totals
11/17 53 16,195 12,653 107 48 ? 225 139 29,451
12/15 53 16,221 12,686 107 48 31 173 136 29,455
The average voter turnout was 74.75%. Ballville F reported the highest, 87.58% turnout. It went Bush over Kerry 255-152. The lowest turnout was City of Fremont 4-E, 54.48%, which went Kerry over Bush 109-98. It appears that many of the precincts with above average turnout went Bush and those with below average turnout went Kerry, especially in Fremont. This could indicate tampering or suppression, or just a lower percentage of turnout by Kerry supporters. However, people most often turn out to voice their opinion to change things, not to make them stay the same. I do wonder what is going on.
For the most part, the election officials in Sandusky County were courteous and professional, and I thanked them for hard work on such a difficult day.
Bruce Hall
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