[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.