Summit county same in 3% hand recount-rest hit the machines at 8:00am

[kuozzman]

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/states/ohio/counties/portage_county/10429392.htm

By law, counties must recount by hand 3 percent of the total number of ballots cast. In Summit County, 276,296 votes were cast for president, resulting in the 8,289 being counted by hand. The votes represent 14 of the county's 475 precincts.

Elections Director Bryan Williams said that because the hand count matched certified results, the remaining 461 precincts will be counted by machine beginning at 8 a.m. today.

Hanna said she was concerned that observers weren't allowed to stand closer to the board employees doing the counting, to better observe. Hanna said she shared her concern with Deputy Director John Schmidt but was told the observers are not allowed to stand over the shoulders of the board employees. Hanna believes they had a legal right to stand close enough to see the ballots.

She said she will voice her concern to lawyers for the Green/Libertarian recount but did not know if any legal action would result.

The Portage County Board of Elections conducted its recount Tuesday. Elections Director Lois Enlow said the recount added one vote for Kerry from Brimfield Township's Precinct C.

Medina County held its recount Monday. The vote totals were unchanged, Elections Deputy Director Janet Pilat said.

Stark County's recount also was taking place Wednesday. Elections Director Jeff Matthews said 13 precincts were counted by hand, and the results did not change. The machine tabulation was expected to continue into the evening, he said.

[saracat]

1. who picked these counties? Awfully weird there are NO differences.

[Brundle_Fly]

2. this is a joke.

so you run a bunch of ballots thru a machine that tells you the count is the same.

I just don't get how we are to get fraud out of that.

It's like having a change machine, you have say a bunch of quarters and dimes. you easily can go grab 3% of your pile in quarters, run them thru and see that you have quarters.

This is a bogus old law that was made to let the 3% come out on average,....who has access to the ballots before....thats where they are setting it up. DUH

[MrUnderhill]

6. Who has access?

Only people who can convince two Democrats that it's "OK".

If the election was stolen, there are a number of ways that it could (in theory) have been done. The one most often alleged lately (that the COUNTING machines are the culprits) would be adequately checked by randomly selecting 3%+ of ballots.

Variations between ACTUAL votes and what was counted would have to be spread pretty thin to avoid easy notice - there would likely be several miscounted votes in each precinct. If you hand-count dozens of precincts and they match the machine totals - you at least know that the machines are counting correctly. So if the election was stolen, it was done at another level.

We aren't at the point of knowing that yet, though we're getting closer. A handful of counties showing little/no change is possible in either situation.

We'll know more fairly soon I'd imagine. It's unlikely that ALL of the counties will be able to just count 3%, so we'll probably get at least a few total hand-counts.

[rjbny62]

8. the recounting could be a red herring

it seems that whenever anyone tries to dig deeper into the polling books or other background information, it seems to raise the hackles.

[mirandapriestly]

10. Yes, if they can't look at the polling books

or dig deeper, I am afraid they won't find anything. I doubt Katherine Blackwell will let them go anywhere where they will find anything

[shraby]

3. Hmmmmm

wonder what brand the machines were?

[Brundle_Fly]

4. Kerry Won Summit County.

Kerry 152,897 - 57%
* 116,184 - 43%

[kuozzman]

5. How do we know he didn't win 64% to 36%????

This machine recount business is bullshit...

[Junkdrawer]

7. SO THE OBSERVERS COULDN'T SEE THE BALLOTS?

Hanna said she was concerned that observers weren't allowed to stand closer to the board employees doing the counting, to better observe. Hanna said she shared her concern with Deputy Director John Schmidt but was told the observers are not allowed to stand over the shoulders of the board employees. Hanna believes they had a legal right to stand close enough to see the ballots.

Oh yeah, babe. Completely fair. :eyes:

[enough]

9. kick

[Duncan]

11. I thought a rep from each concerned party

visually insepcted each and every ballot! WTF is up with that? I saw a news clip of a recount (in FLA?) once where there were atleast 2 people inspecting each ballot. This sounds illegal to me. Every thing I read about the "recount" so far sounds like the BOE is just covering its ass every step of the way with obstructions that sound illegal to me.

[jsascj]

12. No differences in all of these precincts?

I just don't believe it. A little TOO perfect.

[htuttle]

13. Did they check for a cheat sheet on the wall somewhere?

Don't think they only tried that in one precinct!