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Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Inconsistencies in Cincinnati City Council Vote Totals
Posted by Michael Earl Patton
Mr. John Williams
Director of Elections
Hamilton County Board of Elections
Dear Mr. Williams:
I notice that the “Certified Amended Official Results—Cumulative Report,” as listed on the BOE website http://www.hamilton-co.org/BOE, has some unexpected differences with the “Official Final Results—Cumulative Report” that had been posted until recently. Some totals went up, while others went down. There is no explanation that I can find on the website to explain the change or why they were amended in the first place.
Media accounts do report that over a hundred absentee ballots were found after the “Official Final Results” were posted, and in some instances the amended vote totals are consistent with that. But not all instances. For example, in my own case while running for Cincinnati City Council I picked up 5 additional absentee votes. However, I also lost an in-precinct vote, so my net gain was only 4 votes. How can I lose an in-precinct vote if absentee votes are added?
Even so, that is better than what happened to Joan Kaup, who lost 5 absentee votes and 2 in-precinct votes when the additional votes were counted, for a net loss of 7 votes.
And Joan Kaup, in turn, did much better than Cecil Thomas, who lost 13 absentee votes after the additional votes were counted. His in-precinct total remained unchanged, but still how did he lose 13 votes after the additional votes were added?
The changes in vote totals range from +14 for Minette Cooper to -13 for Cecil Thomas. Most of the changes occurred in the absentee count, ranging from +14 to -13 for the same two candidates (neither of them had any change in the in-precinct counts). The in-precinct ones did not vary much, changing from +2 (Cole) to -3 (Qualls, Monzel, and Garry).
Surely you see my concern. If I deposit additional money in my savings account I would not expect the net balance to go down. Further, if John Doe were to deposit additional money into his savings account, that, too, should not make my balance go down. But that seems to be analogous to what happened here.
Again, my questions are:
1. What is the difference between the “Official Final Results,” formerly on the website, and the “Certified Amended Results,” now on the BOE website?
2. Assuming the answer to question number 1 somehow involves counting additional ballots, how can that make the vote totals go DOWN?
Sincerely,
Michael Earl Patton
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19 Dec 2007 at 06:49 am | #
Original Official totals, page 31, City Council race.
Amended Official totals, page 31, City Council race.
20 Dec 2007 at 04:55 pm | #
where is the original article where instead of writing and asking the board MEP simply floated it out there suggesting that there was a problem without knowing if there was or not?
21 Dec 2007 at 07:50 am | #
This just in:
I could accept this weak answer if all the ballots had been recounted. However, the reply does not go near the issue of why adding votes caused some people to LOSE votes.
21 Dec 2007 at 11:01 pm | #
took almost 35 seconds with google to find this
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071130/NEWS01/711300374/1092/COL02
All the votes were recounted and this resulted in over and under counts from the original. It wasn’t just addition of votes it was a recount that resulted in the amended vote totals.
another mystery solved
22 Dec 2007 at 06:28 am | #
So the machines are not reliable?
What technological processes trigger a miscount? How is it possible to know the scale?
22 Dec 2007 at 10:35 am | #
No machine (or human count for that matter) is 100% reliable 100% of the time. That is why there is a trigger for an automatic recount when a race is within a half of one percentage point.
It looks like Williams tells you in his response that it is normally human error that is the problem. My guess would be not filling in the box completely would be the number on culprit. If it was partially filled the scanner may or may not record it.
sorry that this conspiracy theory didnt work out for you either
22 Dec 2007 at 12:55 pm | #
There seems to be some speculation here that the differences are caused by rescanning. News accounts actually differ on this. What is the official story from the BOE?
The December 1 Enquirer states that it was the absentee and provisional ballots that were rescanned, implying that it was not ALL the ballots.
But if any of the ballots were rescanned, then why doesn’t the file heading say it? Or why isn’t there an explanation on the BOE website? Instead, the BOE says that the results were “amended,” not “rescanned” or “revised.” Amended implies a correction, but if the count had to be corrected because they were not scanned properly the first time, then what assurances do we have that they were scanned correctly this time? What changed? Shouldn’t it be news that they were not scanned properly the first time? Instead the news was that a hundred plus ballots weren’t scanned at all, not that they were improperly scanned.
If the ballots were indeed rescanned and this caused the changes, then one might be able to change the result of close races just by a rescan. I can’t imagine that state law would allow this unless there were a good reason.
Further, I’m not certain that rescanning all the ballots accounts for the data. If that is the reason, then why did the absentee ballots change by so much (+14 to -13) while the in-precinct ballots did not (+2 to -3)? Given that the number of in-precinct ballots is so much greater, one would expect those to show a greater variation. This is, in fact, more consistent with a rescanning of just a subset of the ballots.
And if just a subset of the ballots were rescanned, why was that subset chosen?
For curiosity’s sake, I ranked those who “won” the most votes in the amended count—whatever that actually means. Those declared the winners in the overall count are in bold:
Cooper: up 14
Painter: up 10
CROWLEY: up 9
Bates and Garry: each up 7
CRANLEY, Winburn, Harris, Young, and Pavelish: up 6
COLE and Malone: up 5
Patton: up 4
Harper: up 3
Jeffre: up 1
Everybody else lost votes or were unchanged. This is
a very odd pattern, too. Those who lost in the
overall election tended to be the ones who won the
amended votes. Only 2 of the 9 council members actually placed in the top 9 of the amended votes.
22 Dec 2007 at 04:40 pm | #
how on earth do you get that from the article. I even cut and pasted the portion for you to read
and
They rescanned ALL OF THE BALLOTS that is 200,000 ballots not just the 29,000 absentee ones
They said in the enquire article that after the rescanning the results would be listed on the website as amended results. They told you in advance this would happen and you just weren’t paying enough attention to catch it.
In the election world we refer to this as a “recount” and not normally but sometimes it does change the results of a close election. THe fact that the scanning is not 100% accurate due to human error is why we have automatic recounts.
They were scanned properly both times. Williams tells you that there is often human error in the filling out of the ballots that keeps the scanning from being 100% accurate every time. again read the information available.
No because you are dealing with 2 different populations.the people who i know that vote absentee are older and probably more likely to screw up filling in the bubble so their ballots are harder to read for the scanner. Plus remember that there were absentee ballots that were not scanned that would increase the totals more significantly than the in- precinct.
See above ALL OF THE BALLOTS were rescanned.
were you seriously a candidate for office without even understanding how the votes are counted?
22 Dec 2007 at 06:37 pm | #
formerly f,
You did a nice job being logical, but why the personal attack at the end? MEP did not do that to you.
I am eager to see MEP’s rebuttal.
22 Dec 2007 at 08:43 pm | #
I said the December 1 article, which is titled More Hamilton County Ballots Counted. The relevant quote is:
So, there is apparently confusion (once again) about what the BOE did and said. Not to mention confusion about what the Enquirer reported. (By the way, when I asked the BOE earlier about what the Enquirer reported they said that they no responsibility for what the Enquirer prints, and one would have to ask the Enquirer.) Why can’t the BOE just put out a clear and unambiguous statement on its website as to what happened and why?
22 Dec 2007 at 11:28 pm | #
I think that was a very fair question and not an attack. I didnt call MEP an idiot etc but I think that if someone is going to be considered a serious candidate for office they should have a better grip on the process that takes place before during and after the election.
I dont want to hijack the thread here with larger issues but so many of the problems with our recent elections (2000, 2004) were caused by people who were making arguments without regards to the laws that were in place that governed those elections. The constant appeals for changing of the rules after the fact make my head spin (and that is a bipartisian attack on my part, i blame the 2000 fiasco as much on the supreme court as the democratic lawyers who represented al gore)
Is it too much to expect that candidates for office be at least as in touch with the board of elections procedure as someone that simply reads the enquirer? I would expect my candidates to reach that level to be taken seriously. If that is considered an attack I apologize but my question about the lack of candidate knowledge being shown here remains
23 Dec 2007 at 08:37 am | #
formerly f,
See the comment two above. Now that I have re-read his comment #7, he does indicate that the summary is from the Dec. 1 Enquirer.
It’s funny, how you blasted him for not being able to read. Did you not know the date of the article you were defending so vehemently? I’ll admit thinking it looked like MEP misread something, but I was not defending anything.
formerly f just got played for a fool.