Reply #11: Ohio: Cuyahoga County [View All]

[MelissaB]

Certified results show Foley winner of District 14 primary

Sunday, May 21, 2006
Joan Mazzolini
Plain Dealer Reporter

The slim lead that Bill Ritter held over Mike Foley in the Ohio House District 14 Democratic primary evaporated Saturday as elections officials met to certify the results of this month's elections.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections finished the official, final count on Saturday, and the board certified the results three days before the state deadline. Ritter received 4,112 votes and Foley, 4,290.

...snip

Problems started the day before the election after several test runs showed the optical-scan machines were counting absentee ballots incorrectly. As a result, Vu called for a hand count of the 15,000 absentee ballots, and it took nearly six days of 24-hour counting to get the unofficial results.

But the machines were just part of the problem May 2. Nearly 20 percent of the poll workers failed to show up, leading many polling locations to open late.

Then, after the polls closed, workers lost more than 70 memory cards from the machines. The cards store the votes for the touch-screen machines, which were used at the polls for the first time. The machines have a paper record backup, as well as "flash memory" that keeps the voting information.


More: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1148200350107070.xml&coll=2