Absentee votes may delay results (OH)

[OhioChick]

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Joan Mazzolini
Plain Dealer Reporter

Elections officials in large and small Ohio counties say they can't count all their absentee ballots in time to provide results on Election Day, unless they can start scanning them days earlier.

But the secretary of state's office has told Cuyahoga and Lucas counties, which asked for advice, that state law does not allow counting absentee ballots before 12:01 a.m. Election Day.

If the counties cannot begin early, Ohioans could go to bed without knowing the results of close and, even, not-so-close races.

Elections officials in Cuyahoga County and others contend that scanning ballots is not the same as counting votes. They say they want to scan the ballots in the days before Election Day and store the information. Then, they would hit a tabulation button at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day to do the counts.

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1161765666260920.xml&coll=2

[marmar]

1. Of course not...

They need more time to tamper with them.

[Connie_Corleone]

2. Blackwell knows he can okay the scanning of the ballots early.

He just doesn't want to do it.

[liam_laddie]

3. "storing information"

I'd bet my last Euro that there are programmer(s) within the system vendors burning midnight oil
to write software which can omit votes, mainly D of course, as desired by the SOS or any other R's
really in charge, including operatives in DC. Other-the-top cynicism? Fuckin'A RIGHT!
FWIW, I'm in Cincinnati, which votes D, but in the middle of a cesspool of corrupt R counties.
Let's watch for excessive humidity in Clermont county, shall we? And terra threats in Warren?
And mere incompetence in Butler, okay? Jaysus, save us from these goddam devils!

[Connie_Corleone]

4. Hello, fellow Cincinnatian!!

Evil rides into town today. Cheney will be at the Phoenix at noon.

[mod mom]

8. Yep Autorank/TIA has OH-02 (Mean Jean's high humidity district) as a

must watch:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2474379&mesg_id=2474379

[LiberalFighter]

5. They can't scan them at the polls when there are breaks?

Shouldn't the absentee ballots be scanned in the precincts/wards they belong?

Do they need to be known as an absentee when the votes are tallied? If so, didn't they include that in the software capability? Shouldn't be that difficult to id the ballot as absentee or regular.

[Marie26]

6. Groan

And look what's buried in the article:

"Completing the scans by 8 p.m. is critical. A Diebold Election Systems computer server that Cuyahoga bought can't download absentee ballot information at the same time it downloads votes from the touch-screen machines used in polling places."

"Lucas County election officials have yet to decide how they will count their absentee ballots rapidly.

"We'll be talking to our board and our prosecutor about how to proceed," said Jill Kelly, director of the county elections board. Kelly does not know whether the board's Diebold equipment is capable of scanning 20,000 absentee ballots in one day."

[CabalPowered]

7. Cuyahoga

Just the mention of that county makes me twinge in pain.