2004 Ballot Recount: Observer Report

• December 20, 2004:
  Report by Green Party Observer

December 20, 2004:
Report by Green Party Observer

A Licking County commissioner, spotting me in the hallway outside of the Board of Elections last week, snapped off her opinion that the current statewide presidential recount is nothing more than "a waste of money the county can't afford."

Licking County was spared most of the election day confusion reported elsewhere. Still, we're part of the statewide recount and a number of questions and conflicts arose during the week of our recount.

Our team, to be frank, was greeted on opening day, Wednesday, by a rude and arrogant election board and senior staff which refused to discuss its recount procedures or respond to questions, let alone challenges.

We were treated like unwelcome 7th graders in library study hall, disciplined with a visit to the "principal's" office for whispering, socializing or speaking out-of-turn. As you may have read in the Advocate, one of our group was even threatened with arrest for challenging board dictates which she found contrary to law.

Although there seemed to be some attitude adjustment by the board as the ballot inspection droned on into a second and third day, a number of disputes remain.

The board, seemingly informally without a recorded vote, decided we will not be able to inspect the voting machines and their ballot assemblies to insure correct rotation of candidate names.

Neither will we be able to check rejected provisional ballots to determine if denials were justified.

Nor will we have any say as to which precincts will be used in the initial three percent sample count, precincts supposed to be selected "at random."

Even the ballot inspection at times proved contentious.

We were told, for example, that it is not board policy to attempt to determine voter intent on ballots "dimpled" by a weak punch which leaves only a mark or indention. The vote will only count if the stylus cleanly separates the chad from the ballot.

At one point, the elections director even told us not to slow the ballot inspection by pausing to look at "overvote" or "undervote" ballots, a ruling thereafter reversed by the elections board chairman.

In fact, the Green and Libertarian Party recount directors are urging us to look very closely at such ballots, especially "undervotes," and to closely record those ballots with no presidential votes recorded.

As it turned out, the Licking County ballots (following three earlier counts) proved remarkably clean of the sort of hanging chads which made the Florida 2000 election famous. But witnesses were surprised to see how many Licking County voters seemingly braved storms and crowds to go to the polls, stand in long lines and then NOT vote for president (or in other cases, to vote for two, three or even all four presidential candidates, a wonderful if self-defeating display of bi-partisanship).

During two days of observing ballots from 26 precincts, I found nearly 200 such cases of undervotes or overvotes, many of them involving absentee ballots. Something strange is going on here, and we're getting similar reports from other counties.

As of Friday, the recount has examined ballots from about 82 of the county's 120-odd precincts. The expectation is that ballot examination phase will be wrapped up by Wednesday, and then we'll move on to the three percent sample count and other issues, although the board is not being specific as to how it will proceed.

I want to thank all of you that took time out for training, and are helping out on the recount in a variety of ways. We've employed only a relatively few of you as actual witnesses because only four witnesses are allowed each day, and given the nature of the work, it's very important to keep trained, experienced witnesses on the job whenever possible. Next week, however, we'll work more people in the rotation as their time (and the tasks) permit. It's likely 3 but not assured 3 that the official recount here will be over by Thursday, the 23rd.