2004 Ballot Recount: Observer Report

• December 17, 2004:
  Report by Green Party Observer

December 17, 2004:
Report by Green Party Observer

This is how it went in Morrow County. All observers showed up promptly, we had Peggy Swain and John Houpt representing Michael Badnarik, and Observer S. and myself representing David Cobb. John Gerburg was there for John Kerry. No one claimed to be representing George Bush.

There was a representative from the Marion Star observing for awhile and she took pictures and had us all write down our names and who we were there for. She asked for my number in case she has questions later. There were two other men there, I believe one was the Mayor of Mount Gilead, I didn't find out who the other man was.

There were two counting teams, the Board Director, Marilyn Smith, and another woman (I didn't get her name, I'm pretty sure she is on the board) who seemed to really know what was what.

We began by doing a test of the voting machine. They picked three precincts, Marengo Village, South East Gilead Township, and Troy Township, and made a header that matched each of these, they gave each precinct 55 ballots.

They punched the ballots in alphabetical order by last name, giving the first candidate one vote, and the second [candidate] two, proceding on until the last candidate got ten votes in each of the test precincts.

This was to show that the machine could read the different headers. This worked fine, and when fed into the machine showed that Badnarik would have recieved one vote and Zych got ten per precinct.

They reset the machine and showed us that all totals were zero. The total number of votes cast in Morrow County was 16,694. Three percent of this would be 501. They picked Harmony Township to do the hand count on because it has 517 ballots cast.

At this point Observer S. spoke up and said that the precinct had to be selected at random.

He explained that he felt that random was something like putting 36 precincts' numbers in a bowl and pulling one, if it was short, we would have to pull another one.

This was not well taken. They said that they felt how they selected was random and that the board had the right to choose. They showed us in writing where they were getting this, and of course it is all in the interpretation of "random."

While this discussion was going on, one of the women left the room and came back and said that she had called the Secretary of State [Kenneth Blackwell] and that they were right.

At this point I called you and discussed what was going on. Then I called the legal team and reported it.

The hand count for Harmony Township continued. They came up with 314 votes for Bush, 191 for Kerry, one vote for Badnerich, three votes for Nader which would be thrown out, and seven over or under.

They ran them through the maching and of course the machine came up with 314 for Bush, 189 for Kerry, one for Badernich and one blank ballot, three votes for the candidate that was removed (Nader). The machine doesn't count over and unders.

So we are back at the counting table. After some discussion, and that is among us all, we figure out that we need to separate out the overs and the unders. The unders are easy. They find them quickly and separate them out. The three over votes were not easy. They looked and counted and looked and counted. Now they were coming up with Bush having 315 and Kerry 191.

Well, when you add it up you know you are looking for three ballots. So they finally decided to feed the ballots through the machine by candidate. Observer S. told them the most efficient way to do that was to first feed through half and figure out which half the missing card was in, then half that and keep on until we find it. That is what we did. The over ballot we were looking for was cast by someone voting for Bush and Peroutka. Very hard to find by hand count.

We are still missing two ballots, but when we do the same thing with Kerry we find one over ballot where they voted for Kerry and Peroutka, and one where the person voted once for every Presidential candidate on the ballot.

Now our numbers match the machines. We run them through again and all is well. We can now run all of the votes through the machine.

We watch the teams examine the rest of the ballots looking for hanging chads. This consisted of fanning from both ends.

They fed them into the machine and when the final totals came up the totals were Bush 10,474, Kerry 5775, Peroutka 40, and Badnarik 39. George Bush lost a vote somewhere in Franklin Township. The original totals were Bush 10,475, Kerry 5775, Peroutka 40, and Badnarik 39. However the total vote cast came out the same 16,694.

For Harmony Township, which was the hand count precinct, after reviewing 24 pages there were 464 signatures. There were nine provisional ballots cast and nine counted. There were 45 absentee ballots cast and 45 counted.

There was one defaced ballot which they could not count, it was looked at by the board and they signed off as it was defaced. They showed it to us and it looks like the person put it into the machine backwards and then continued to vote. There were no holes in the ballot just bubbles. It was impossible to know what the voter intended. So 463, 45, 9, 517 was final.

All in all. this was very educational, and everyone seemed to want the same thing. I felt no ill intent at any time.