http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1101205815101550.xml
Cleveland.com,
The Plain Dealer
8,099
Cuyahoga ballots ruled invalid
November 23,
2004
Diane Solov,
Plain Dealer Reporter
The
questions about provisional ballots haven't gotten any easier, but there is a
preliminary answer to how many of the controversial ballots will be discarded
in Cuyahoga County.
The Cuyahoga
County Board of Elections voted Monday to reject one out of three of the 24,472
provisional ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election.
The bulk of
the 8,099 invalidated ballots were determined to have been cast by
nonregistered voters or registered voters who cast their ballots in the wrong
precinct. Voters received provisional ballots at the polls on Election Day if
their names did not appear on the voter rolls.
Among Ohio's
88 counties, Cuyahoga County had the largest number of the controversial
ballots, which pre-election predictions had said could rival the hanging chad
as a blemish on official election results.
In the 2000
election, about 17 percent of provisional ballots were invalidated, compared
with 33 percent in this election.
The numbers
may fluctuate slightly as elections workers finalize vote counts in the last
week before the board votes Monday to certify the election results, said
Michael Vu, the county's elections director.
As county
elections workers stood watch over a hand truck bearing 10 boxes stuffed with
invalidated ballots, an ensemble of lawyers, professors and others who were
active in voter registration drives made it clear that the board's decision
won't quell the lingering disquiet about the possibility that some legitimate
votes won't be counted.
During the
2½ hours the board meeting was delayed, lawyers and elections volunteers
swapped tallies, analyses and stories about Election Day mishaps, many of which
they offered in testimony after the board vote.
Confusion
among poll workers about provisional-ballot procedures resulted in
inconsistent, and sometimes erroneous, directions to voters, and some
legitimate voter registrations never made the official rolls because of
administrative errors, according to testimony.
Seventy
percent of the rejected ballots, or 5,595, won't count because there was no
record of their registration.
"I find
it inconceivable that over 5,000 voters in the county would wait an hour in the
pouring rain to vote if they haven't registered," said Dr. Norm Robbins, a
neurosciences professor at Case Western Reserve University who volunteered for
the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition.
Robert
Bennett, the elections board chairman who also chairs the Ohio Republican
Party, said provisional ballots were cross-checked by name and address before
they were disqualified. But he acknowledged that errors may have seeped into
the system.
"We
like to think it's a perfect system, but it's not," Bennett said. "We
try to get it as perfect as we can."
Provisional
ballots that were accepted have been routed to the balloting department, where
they will be checked for double voting. Seven ballots already have been put in
that category, Vu said.
On Monday
afternoon, the elections board posted the lists of provisional voters whose
ballots were accepted and rejected. Vu said any concrete evidence that might
reinstate discarded ballots will be considered this week, before the tally is
finalized.
"Elections
will never be perfect, because there's a human factor involved," Vu said
in an interview after the meeting.
To reach
this Plain Dealer reporter:
dsolov@plaind.com,
216-999-4133
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2004 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved.
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