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To: furquhart

Yellowstone County includes Billings, the largest city in Montana. None of that county has been counted:

Software flub leads to county recount
Problems delay results elsewhere in the state

By ED KEMMICK
Of The Gazette Staff
Yellowstone County elections workers were expecting to work until 5 or 6 this morning after deciding after midnight Wednesday to recount every ballot cast in the county Tuesday.

County Election Administrator Duane Winslow said the fault was his. The county was using a new software program for its three electronic vote-counting machines this year, he said, and he neglected an important function in tabulating the absentee ballots.

Absentee ballots - and there were nearly 20,000 in Yellowstone County this year - are normally counted first, after which the regular ballots from the precincts are counted.

After the absentee ballots were counted, Winslow said, he was supposed to hit a "zero out" button on the voting machines, which basically cleans the slate before the regular ballots are counted. That was the step Winslow neglected to take on two of the machines. He said he thinks he hit the button on one of the machines.
"It's unfamiliar," he said. "It's just a mistake I made."

As a result, he said, some of the absentee ballots, perhaps as many as 3,000, may have been counted again when the regular ballots were being run through the machines. He decided about 12:40 a.m. to undertake a complete recount.

"I'd just rather make absolutely sure, especially with races this close," he said.

Winslow assembled what staff was left in the courthouse just before 1 a.m. and told them about his decision to conduct a recount. He said they would probably be there until 5 or 6 this morning. He also said that while the reason for this recount is new, the delayed count is not unprecedented. He remembered at least two previous occasions when votes were still being counted at dawn.

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/11/08/news/local/22-flub.txt


7,331 posted on 11/08/2006 2:09:11 AM PST by conservative in nyc
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To: conservative in nyc

That's very good news. It could explain why people were so surprised to see Burns down in the early numbers from Yellowstone.


7,336 posted on 11/08/2006 2:11:20 AM PST by furquhart (Time for a New Crusade - Deus lo Volt!)
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