Question about Election results pre-certification Warren County OH

[KaliTracy]

After the election I grabbed the uncertified results from the Ohio Secretary of State Website -- looking for vote patterns in Primaries(registered Party voters) to the election.

Anyway -- I just noticed something tonight -- and let me know if this has already been discussed and dismissed -- I just caught it 'cause I kind of abandonded my project when so many people here actually knew what they were doing with numbers.

Anyway

Week of the Election (Possibly the 4th or 5th of November) there were two sheets. President Page: with each candidate's name:

Michael Badnarik NonPartisan..............190
*George W. Bush Republican.............66,523
David Keith Cobb (WI)Non-Parisan............0
Richard A. Duncan (WI)Non-Partisan..........0
James Harris (WI) Non-Partisan..............0
John F. Kerry Democratic...............25,399
John T. Parker (WI) Non Partisan............0
Michael Anthony Peroutka Non-Partisan.....139
Joe Schriner (WI) Non-Parisan...............0
Thomas F. Zych (WI) Non-Partisan............0
total votes page1...................92,251

On Same Day, there was another page Called Voter Turnout

Total Precincts...........................157
Total Registered Voters...............125,919
Total Votes Cast....................93,321
Percentage of Votes Cast................74.11
Provisional Ballots Issued..............1,465

"Certified" Results (captured January 14) show the following

Michael Badnarik NonPartisan..............193 (+ 3 votes)
*George W. Bush Republican.............68,037 (+ 1,514 votes)
David Keith Cobb (WI)Non-Parisan............3 (+ 3 votes)
Richard A. Duncan (WI)Non-Partisan..........0
James Harris (WI) Non-Partisan..............0
John F. Kerry Democratic...............26,044 (+ 645 votes)
John T. Parker (WI) Non Partisan............0
Michael Anthony Peroutka Non-Partisan.....144 (+ 5 votes)
Joe Schriner (WI) Non-Parisan...............1 (+ 1 vote)
Thomas F. Zych (WI) Non-Partisan............0
total votes page 1...................94,229
..............................(+ 908 votes Voter Turnout page)
..............................(+ 1,978 votes President Page)
ONLY 1,465 provisional ballots, yet there is an increase overall of
2,168 votes.

On Edit: Forgot these numbers

"Certified" Voter Turnout page

Total Precincts...........................157
Total Registered Voters...............125,165 (- 754 registered voters
Total Votes Cast....................95,512 (+ 2191 votes)
Percentage of Votes Cast................76.31

1. How are votes certified after the night of the election? Are they run through a machine again?

2. It looks like Secretary of Ohio Website puts in numbers by hand (as opposed to importing an excell sheet) -- But ALL the numbers of the Voter Turnout Page were Higher (some by just a few hundred, a couple by over 3,000, Cuyahoga over 12,000 vote difference just in the Week of the election Posting). I'm just wondering why this would be so different when the data is posted at the same time? Any guesses?

3. What actually is a "certified" vote?

[harmonyguy]

1. There certainly are some weird numbers in Warren....

and you point out some additional weirdnesses.

I too, grabbed the presidential race pages from the SoS site, at numerous time on election nite and subsequent days, as well as the Warren County canvass results, of which there were only two sets published Nov 3 at 143pm and Nov 15 at 1252pm.

In spite of the SoS site indicating 1465 provisional ballots, they later published another page showing 1952 provisionals issued and 1625 accepted in Warren County.

I believe that some of the other differences in totals lie with the number of folks who supposedly went to the polls, waited patiently in line, and although they cast a ballot, they didn't select ANY presidential candidate. I'm showing 1070 of those on the initial results and 1093 by the final results.

In looking at the Warren County precinct by precinct results, there are many instances where the increase in votes for the candidates exceeds the increase in total ballots cast. Let's see, if each of three candidates is given one additional vote, you'd expect there to be at least three additional ballots counted, wouldn't you? After all, it wouldn't be right to have votes for two different candidates on the same ballot? I think I counted at least 15 precincts that must have had THAT problem.

What's a certified vote? I don't know, but in some cases it appears that a certified total is when a board of elections say "Enough of this counting nonsence - let's just decide that we've done our jobs properly and go home. We'll all just sign-off on these numbers and call it a night - after all, if WE can't get them to add up no one else can either"

Don't know if this helps or not, but thanks for the opportunity to vent.

HG ;-)

[KaliTracy]

2. what's weird to me is the Voter Turnout Page vs. the President Page

Cuyahoga looks like this:

Is it typical to pick up this many votes upon certification? I thought certification was counting absentee and provisional ballots?

Week of the Election (Possibly the 4th or 5th of November) President Page: with each candidate's name:

Michael Badnarik NonPartisan.............1,828
*George W. Bush Republican.............215,624
David Keith Cobb (WI)Non-Parisan............0
Richard A. Duncan (WI)Non-Partisan..........0
James Harris (WI) Non-Partisan..............0
John F. Kerry Democratic...............433,262
John T. Parker (WI) Non Partisan............0
Michael Anthony Peroutka Non-Partisan.....1,667
Joe Schriner (WI) Non-Parisan...............0
Thomas F. Zych (WI) Non-Partisan............0
total votes page1.....................652,381

On Same Day, there was another page Called Voter Turnout

Total Precincts...........................1436
Total Registered Voters...............1,005,807
Total Votes Cast.......................665,334 (+12,953 votes)
Percentage of Votes Cast................66.15
Provisional Ballots Issued..............24,788

**********
"Certified" Results (captured January 14) show the following

Michael Badnarik NonPartisan..............1,853 (+57 votes)
*George W. Bush Republican.............221,600 (+ 5,976 votes)
David Keith Cobb (WI)Non-Parisan............13 (+ 13 votes)
Richard A. Duncan (WI)Non-Partisan..........0
James Harris (WI) Non-Partisan..............9 (+ 9 votes)
John F. Kerry Democratic...............448,503 (+15,241 votes)
John T. Parker (WI) Non Partisan............2 (+ 2 votes)
Michael Anthony Peroutka Non-Partisan.....1752 (+ 85 votes)
Joe Schriner (WI) Non-Parisan...............12 (+ 12 votes)
Thomas F. Zych (WI) Non-Partisan............1 +1 vote)
total votes page 1...................673,377
..............................(+ 21,921 votes Voter Turnout page)
..............................(+ 21,396 votes President Page)
24,788 provisional ballots issued.

"Certified" Voter Turnout page

Total Precincts...........................1436
Total Registered Voters.............1,007,187 (+1380 registered voters
Total Votes Cast....................687,255 (+ 21,921 votes)
oh wait -- could these be under/over vote discrepencies!?

Percentage of Votes Cast................68.24

[KaliTracy]

3. possible over/under votes maybe.... *shrug* n/t

[lizzieforkerry]

4. If you guys figure out what you need looked at, I'll go over and look!

Just let me know what I'm looking for.

[KaliTracy]

5. I'm not sure! I don't understand why the first week totals of

registered voters would be so different from the certified results -- shouldn't the Registered Voters be recorded PRIOR to the election?

I think the differences between the two pages might be under/over votes -- ???

What is an election night tally?

What is the difference between that and a certified tally?

[harmonyguy]

6. Registered voters differences

I don't recall if Ohio allows same day registrations, but if they do then the initial tally likely wouldn't include all of them.

Election night tally would be those votes counted on election night, and (may) also include absentee ballots - often counted as a separate precinct number for simplicity.

Certified tally includes all of the above plus resolved issues and resolved provisional votes.

As I understand it, theoretically they should have an immediate count of the number of provisional ballots issued, and then the only thing to resolve is whether or not each one actually is valid. What's odd in Warren County (and I'm betting in many other Ohio counties) is that the SoS published a count of the number of provisionals issued and then a few weeks later published a count of the issued and approved. The two numbers for 'issued' were quite different, and in fact the number of approved provisionals exceeded the number of provisionals initially reported as issued.

HG

[KaliTracy]

9. Ohio Does Not Allow Same Day Registrations. In fact, Blackwell

did everything he could to Limit Registration at the last minute (Paper Weight and Provisional Ballot Rules changed in September) -- you had to cast a provisional ballot IN your precinct -- even if you were at a polling place which represented several precincts, if you "cast" your ballot and put it on the wrong precinct table, it was canned.

[roseBudd]

11. the cutoff for registering in OH was Oct. 4 n/t

[roseBudd]

7. Is this why? They recounted on Dec. 15

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041215/NEWS01/412150393/1056

Warren Co. recount goes public
After Election Night lockdown, security eases up

By Erica Solvig
Enquirer staff writer


LEBANON - Even as Warren County elections officials recounted votes Tuesday - this time, publicly - questions lingered about how the votes were tallied the first time.

[KaliTracy]

10. ok -- but almost all the counties have discrepancies like this... so

I guess it's typical. :shrug: I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

[roseBudd]

8. The Greens report on the Warren recount

http://votecobb.org/recount/ohio_reports/counties/warren.php