Reply #37: OH: Certified results show Foley winner of District 14 primary (recounts) [View All]

[rumpel]

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.

Board executive director Michael Vu said 221,405 votes were cast, including 6,121 ballots that hadn't been counted for the unofficial results. Those ballots were absentee votes that arrived after April 30; ballots from overseas; provisional ballots; and votes cast on paper ballots because touch-screen machines didn't work.

The Foley-Ritter contest was one of five races to change winners in the official results. The others were races for party committee seats.

Five contests will be recounted, including a Garfield Heights school tax renewal. The official results have the renewal winning 2,123 to 2,104, but the closeness of the race dictates an automatic recount. The four other recounts are in races for committee seats.

Vu told the four members of the elections board about other problems discovered during the official count, including evidence that some poll workers made mistakes that made people vote in the incorrect precincts.

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