City's vote recount ends (Milwaukee)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | 9/17/2006 | Derrick Nunnally/Dave Umhoefer

[steveegg]

Milwaukee officials announced Saturday that after a three-day manual count of ballots, Tuesday's primary election brought 46,500 voters to the polls in Milwaukee, not 80,000 as the city previously reported.

City Election Commission chief Susan Edman said the ward-by-ward review of turnout confirmed the city's suspicion that a computer programming error by her office caused the misreporting....

The earlier report of nearly 27% turnout had generated confusion because it suggested that tens of thousands of people showed up to vote but ignored or voted incorrectly in the top races on the ballot, including state attorney general and Milwaukee County district attorney and sheriff.

The discrepancy was brought to the city's attention by the Journal Sentinel, which reported on it Thursday. Its cause, Edman said, was a double and triple count at polling sites containing multiple wards. The duplicated figures showed up in 198 of the city's 314 wards, the paper found....

The hand count was conducted by the city with help from the county at the city's warehouse on N. Hawley Road. The count was completed Saturday and turned up 46,413 ballots, compared with the original report of 80,064, a difference of 33,651.

Based on city officials' diagnosis of the computer miscalculation, city officials believe instead of 46,413 that 46,548 people actually voted last week. The gap of 135 between that machine count and the hand count is mostly due to 101 ballots cast at 53rd Street School, 3618 N. 53rd St., that were tallied the night of the election but could not be located for the hand count, Edman said. A search is under way.

The remaining variance of 34 ballots will be reconciled when city officials review polling lists and other election materials before turning its numbers over to the Milwaukee County Election Commission....

[steveegg]

Thread on the start of this "recount" over here. This pseudo-recount (just a double-check on the number of valid ballots cast, not a recount of any individual race) began after the paper noticed that tens of thousands more people were reported to have voted than were recorded with a vote in the top 4 races in Milwaukee County ('RAT and Pubbie primaries for state attorney general, 'RAT primary for district attorney and 'RAT primary for sheriff). A couple of quick observations based both on the excerpt and the extended article:

• The 135-ballot discrepency between what the Milwaukee Elections Commission estimated and what was actually "recounted" is very troubling, especially the 101 ballots that disappeared from the 53rd Street School (a North Side/inner-city polling place). That's approximately 0.29% of the ballots cast. As a reminder, President Bush lost Wisconsin by 0.38% of the vote in 2004 and 0.21% in 2000.
• The DPW/DemonRAT Party of Milwaukee County candidate for sheriff, Vince Bobot, is the only candidate not satisfied with this explanation. Despite losing the 'RAT primary countywide to incumbent DINO David Clarke (it's a long story; short version is he took advantage of Wisconsin law not requiring party membership to run in a party's primary) 35,764-32,017, he's still interested in a full recount. I actually agree that a full recount should be done, but unlike Bobot, I know that it won't change anything.

[steveegg]

"Continuation of your earlier thread" ping.

[magslinger]

"This is a test of the Moonbat Election Rigging System. Had this been an actual election, the MSM would not be covering it.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP."

[steveegg]

"This is a test of the Moonbat Election Rigging System. Had this been an actual election, the MSM would not be covering it.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP."

They can't blame Diebold for failing to rig this; the city did its own programming of the machines. Also, the MEC is controlled by the 'RATs (through mayor Tom "Milk Carton" Barrett), and I didn't see any of them at any of my VWRC meetings.

[laotzu]

Tuesday's primary election brought 46,500 voters to the polls in Milwaukee, not 80,000 as the city previously reported. .... The gap of 135 between that machine count and the hand count...

Help me out. I'm confused.

The article describes a gap of 33,500., and then offers an explanation for 135.

What am I missing?

[steveegg]

The article describes a gap of 33,500., and then offers an explanation for 135.

The confusion is probably a function of my selected excerpting, which assumed that people either read the article or the previous thread (lesson #1 - never assume anything). Let's see if I can clear it up some:

• The 33,500 (the difference between the original turnout number and the corrected number) was (likely) caused by a software programming error (done by the city), which caused ballots cast at polling places with multiple wards to be counted multiple times for the purpose of reporting turnout, though not for any individual race. It was that discrepency that caught the local paper's eye and ultimately caused this "recount".
• The 135 represents the difference in the city's estimate of how many ballots were actually cast and how many ballots they actually counted in storage. They sort of accounted for 101 by losing that number from the 53rd St. School polling place, but have not yet accounted for the other 34.

Hope I cleared things up.

[Don Corleone]

Mexico City...Please copy...

[laotzu]

Thanks.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Your Tax Dollars At Work" Ping!

Make sure to read the entire article. It's a little confusing. However, even the ONE vote that's not counted could be yours! And as a Conservative in this state, it most likely is. Grrrrrrr!

Thanks to Steve for the follow-up. :)

[knittnmom]

Funny no one noticed as they were voting. In Fitchburg, we ran the absentee ballots through early in the day. Four failed to go through (cross voting) after being assigned a number. That led to our count being off by 4 - and we were repeatedly asked to explain that! Maybe Fitchburg voters are more savvy!

[T. P. Pole]

And as I asked in the original article, by how much did Kerry win Wisconsin over Bush?

[T. P. Pole]

And I'll answer my own question with the answer - quite a bit less than 33,651.

[steveegg]

If you want to convert the percentages I put in reply #1 to hard numbers, it was 11,000 and change in 2004 and just over 5,000 in 2000.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Thanks for the followup!

[steveegg]

'Tis a very important point. I strongly suspect that this "turnout" error not only happened in previous elections, but that it also included individual races like President.

Say, anybody got a "few" hours to do our own recount of, say, the 2004 Presidential election in Milwaukee? I'll do the Open Records request if we can get enough volunteers.

[T. P. Pole]

I'm in. I can give some time.

We also need to be ready for the gov's race in November, in case they try to steal it again.

[steveegg]

What "in case"? The 'RATs are already implementing Operation Theft 06.