Ohio counties finish official ballot counts

[mdb]

M.R. KROPKO

Associated Press

CLEVELAND - A few remaining county elections boards across Ohio wrapped up certifying results from the presidential election.

Ten counties worked Wednesday to finish their official ballot counts before a 5 p.m. deadline. The work involved determining how many of 155,337 provisional ballots statewide were valid.

President Bush defeated John Kerry in Ohio by about 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results from the Nov. 2 election. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell plans to certify the final result on Monday.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell's office, said there will be no available breakdown of how many provisionals or absentee votes went to Bush or Kerry. He said the final tally will be inclusive of all votes.

Elections officials had to determine whether provisional ballots cast by people who said they were registered but didn't appear in lists where they voted were in fact valid votes. In the 78 counties that certified before Wednesday, an average 78 percent of the provisional votes were validated.

Six of the 10 counties remaining on Wednesday were validating provisionals at a rate of about 77 percent.

In Franklin County, which includes Columbus, 12,125 of 14,462 provisional ballots, or 84 percent, were declared valid.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Kerry had 54 percent of the vote, or 285,500 to 237,252 for Bush. Kerry's lead in the county widened by 7,171 votes from the unofficial results, largely because a computer glitch on election night recorded an extra 3,893 votes for Bush in one precinct.

Disks from that precinct, in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, all had the correct total and workers have been unable to reproduce the error, Damschroder said.

The rest of the change was due to a Kerry advantage in overseas absentee ballots and provisional votes, he said.

more...

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10314791.htm?1c

[okieinpain]

1. there we go again with kerry getting more of the absentee ballots

[LisaL]

4. Well, those are paper ballots, you know.

Unlike those Bush loving paperless voting machines in Franklin county.

[Emillereid]

10. One reason is that this year democrats did not trust machine voting and

opted to vote absentee. I know that happened here in CA because I was working in a democratic office and we encouraged everybody to vote with paper. Also when I did some phone banking to Ohio, part of the script encouraged people to vote absentee. Thus absentee voters might be biased towards democrats because of skewed self selection.

[LisaL]

15. Please!

Do you even know that tons of people in OH got phone calls and mail from Republicans ( and personal message from Bush himself) encouraging them to vote absentee? Do you know that? I personally know people that got these calls, and they aren't even registered republicans. It's bullshit that most democrats voted absentee and most republicans went to the polls.
:spank:

[Emillereid]

16. First of all I did not claim that MOST Democrats voted absentee

while most Repukes went to the polls. I simply said that the absentee vs poll vote number might have been skewed by a phenomenon I knew was happening -- namely democrats were being encouraged to vote on paper. If Republicans in Ohio were also being encouraged to vote absentee that might have meant a more even distribution. It will depend on which, if either, party was more successful in their campaign to encourage absentee voting. This should be readily verifiable by the actual numbers/percentages of absentee voters for each party.

BTW, you don't need to use the abusive language to state your point -- I for one am always open to sound argument!

[LittleClarkie]

18. I hate that smilie

The one on the left is enjoying it too much.

[Pirate Smile]

2. "workers have been unable to reproduce the error" - Well, I think some

further investigation is definite necessary. Will it happen? Hmmm.

Why the hell do we have to wait until Monday to have it certified?! Bullsh#$.

[LisaL]

3. Looks like Bush's lead will be shrinking in OH.

[Karenca]

5. Hah!!!!!!

Keery won Ohio.
Oh please oh please oh please.......No more Bush!!!!

[Twist_U_Up]

6. whew

damn good thing blackball certifies the vote on Monday.

Don`t want him to be late and get in trouble <snicker>

[ahyums]

8. Monday's really late

they were talking about tomorrow or Friday initially

[merh]

7. Ain't this telling ....

"The rest of the change was due to a Kerry advantage in overseas absentee ballots and provisional votes, he said."

[ahyums]

9. does anyone know what the final count is on the provisionals?

[Pirate Smile]

12. LATEST 81/88 Bush + 51,781 Kerry + 64,492 76% VALID

LATEST 81/88 Bush + 51,781 Kerry + 64,492 76% VALID

The latest county to come in is Franklin, these totals include the correction for the 3800 double count Bush got on election night

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x72685

This is the latest from the thread following the count.

[ahyums]

13. depending on what's remaining that doesn't sound bad at all-

I'll be really interested in the final percentages

oh and thanks for reminding me about that other thread.

[Twist_U_Up]

11. what about Military ?

I know the bush cartel owns that computerized scam too , anyone know what the breakdown on those where ?

my guess before I know is the numbers will be a little higher than 2000.

Anyone know ?

[mdb]

14. The article's not to telling. Maybe overseas ballots are also military?n/t

[Moderator]

17. mdb

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