OHIO VOTES DOUBLE COUNT: told by EL workers their absentee votes were LOST

[Karenca]

sorry if it's been posted: from AOL NEWS:

Updated: 08:59 AM EST
Glitches Found in Ohio Vote Count
By JAY COHEN, AP

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Nov. 18) - Election officials in one Ohio county found that about 2,600 ballots were double-counted, and two other counties have discovered possible cases of people voting twice in the presidential election.

Prosecutors were trying to determine Wednesday whether charges should be filed against a couple in Madison County accused of voting twice. In addition, Summit County election workers investigated possible double votes found under 18 names.

In the other case, Sandusky County election officials discovered that about 2,600 ballots from nine precincts were counted twice, likely because of worker error, elections director Barb Tuckerman said.

Tuckerman believes the votes were counted twice when they were mistakenly placed alongside a pile of uncounted ballots. The room where the ballots were being fed into optical-scan machines on election night was so crowded that ballots had to be placed on the floor, Tuckerman said.

"It was totally hectic," she said.

The problem was discovered when Tuckerman found that one precinct showed 131 percent of registered voters had cast ballots.

President Bush won the election by taking Ohio with 136,000 votes more than Democrat John Kerry, according to the unofficial tally.

The couple who voted twice in Madison County cast absentee ballots in October, then voted in person on Election Day, county elections director Gloria Herrel said. The couple said election workers told them their absentee votes were lost, prosecutor Steve Pronai said.

In Summit county, typically the votes were made by absentee ballot or in person, and then a second vote was cast with a provisional ballot in another precinct, elections director Bryan Williams said.

Under Ohio law, people who vote twice could be charged with election fraud, falsification or illegal voting, according the Secretary of State's Office. The maximum penalty for the most severe charge is 18 months in prison.

Double votes could have affected the result of a local schools income tax request that failed by one vote in Madison County.

In Illinois, thousands of provisional ballots cast on Election Day did not count, in most cases for lack of evidence the voters were actually registered. The Associated Press count was based on checks of several election jurisdictions. State officials were still gathering information Wednesday on provisional ballots cast statewide, a day after the deadline to count them.


11/18/04 00:05 EST

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I've been saying over and over again, that this same thing had

to be happening in Florida, and worse from the Republican side.

Take this into account:

(1) The Republicans were aggresively sending out absentee ballots.

(2) The Republicans were aggresively calling people on election day to come out and vote.

(3) Each county in Florida has its own independent voter registry. The only way it's updated is if a voter responsibly registers when he moves to another county. It doesn't happen all too often in a state where the transient level is high.

[denverbill]

2. I think you are 100% correct.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out Republican 'election workers' called these hapless idiots and told them to vote again.

Oh, and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[zbdent]

3. Have the state prove that their absentee ballots were counted

likely that they voted for Kerry . . .

[Ducks In A Row]

4. so the rethugs figure out another way to screw dems votes

those EL need to be questioned under oath.