Canvassing Board Chair Suspects Voter and Precinct Worker Error in Primary
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How did nearly half of Bay County voters cast bad ballots that apparently weren't counted in last August's primary election?
Bay County officials have been baffled for months about the 10,735 ballots invalidated in the primary.
Now, Walter Wozniak, former Bay City clerk, chairman of the Bay County Board of Canvassers, thinks answers may be emerging. His conclusion is based only on conjecture, not on research or an official review, he stressed.
Since there were no recounts called for by candidates in the primary, the canvassing board could not do an in-depth review of the election results, he said.
"A lot of voters apparently made mistakes by voting for candidates of both parties, and it seems as if election workers failed to get them to cast new ballots in all these cases as regulations call for," said Mr. Wozniak. "In fact there were notes on some of the returns saying "refused new ballot."
MyBayCity.com in September filed a Freedom of Information request to County Clerk Cynthia Luczak for details about how more than 48 percent of primary voters could have cast "crossover" ballots, spoiling them by voting for more than one party.
Mrs. Luczak responded with information that did not provide a definitive answer to the glitch. She could only theorize that a computer programming error may have caused the puzzling results.
She said that election workers and inspectors are trained to ask voters to cast a new ballot if their vote is rejected by the machine because of a "crossover" or other error.
Officials in four Bay County townships checked by MyBayCity.com reported that proper procedures were followed and the number of invalidated ballots was minimal -- nowhere near the 48 percent reported on the county election results.
Since no candidate filed for a recount, the canvassing board did not examine the ballots closely just after the election and thus did not discover how the vast number of ballots could have been reported spoiled, Mrs. Luczak said.
County officials have noted a similar situation in Tuscola and Huron counties in the November general election where about a substantial number of ballots were not re-countable because of "procedure related" reasons, according to the Huron Daily Tribune, Bad Axe newspaper.
Officials in Huron and Tuscola counties said optical scan voting machines, same as used in Bay County, have a function to over-ride bad ballots. Apparently some election inspectors in those counties pressed the over-ride function in some cases, accepting ballots that otherwise would have been rejected.
State requirements provide that election workers must be trained every two years. "There is a lot of time to forget between trainings all of the details of the election process," a Huron County official said.
Since a third of the precincts in Tuscola County and about a quarter of Huron County precincts were not re-countable, State Rep. Terry Brown, a Democrat, was unable to overturn a 23 vote lead by Republican Kurt E. Damrow.
Election workers in the Bay County primary may have pressed the over-ride function, allowing the bad ballots to be counted, said Mr. Wozniak.
However, some Bay County officials said privately that election procedures must be tightened, and the optical scan machines checked, before the next election. "Something is definitely wrong in the way we count the ballots, and this needs to be fixed," one official said. "Voters must be assured that there is integrity in the voting process." ###
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sunbeamf Says:
On December 27, 2010
at 10:20 AM
I think that the regulation allowing people to re-vote if they mess up the first ballot gives unfair advantage to those who vote in person. If I mess up my absentee ballot that's it! I only get one bite of the apple. Seems to me if you can't read the instructions or listen as the workers tell you to vote ONLY ONE SIDE you deserve to lose your vote.
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Dave Rogers |
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