Tracie Hunter is a week or so away from becoming Hamilton County’s newest juvenile court judge after a recount Thursday confirmed she won the 2010 election. The final count put Hunter, a Democrat, 74 votes ahead of Republican John Williams in an election that is believed to be the longest in county history. Hunter trailed Williams by 23 votes after the election on Nov. 2, 2010, but a court order to count about 300 contested provisional ballots gave her the victory. “It has been a long struggle,” said Hunter’s lawyer, Jennifer Branch. “But it was worth the effort because we Americans believe every vote should count.” Read More »
recount
Sometimes, a few votes make a huge difference. Just ask Rick Santorum. In January, Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses, but, because of vote counting and tabulation errors, Mitt Romney was declared the winner. In the two weeks before the error became clear, Romney’s campaign gained momentum, while Santorum’s withered. Unfortunately, the same problem – or worse – could easily occur in Massachusetts. This year, voters will choose the president, and control of the US Senate may come down to the race shaping up between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren. Read More »
A date has been set for a recount of votes in a Glasgow City Council ward after it emerged hundreds of ballots had not been included in the official count. Local authority elections took place on May 3 but it emerged last week that some votes in the Langside ward were not added to the final tally of votes in Glasgow. A recount of the whole ward is set to take place at around 4pm on Tuesday which could change the overall results. Returning officer George Black and senior officers involved in the count have agreed to forgo their fee from the election to pay for the recount. Read More »
Glasgow City Council is set to hold a recount for a city ward after it emerged hundreds of votes cast had not been included in the official count. The mistake came to light after the Battlefield Primary ballot box in Langside was registered as having no votes. It is thought that the box contains around 385 votes, which although scanned and registered, were not added to the final tally. The missing votes could be enough to change the overall result for the ward. Glasgow City Council is now seeking court approval to look at the votes and hold a recount. Read More »
A hand recount of votes cast during last month’s elections in 15 of Anchorage’s 119 precincts will begin Wednesday, according to city officials. According to Municipal Clerk Barbara Gruenstein, the recount was requested by 10 qualified voters, who paid $100 per precinct where they requested recounts. The selected locations include nearly a dozen precincts across Anchorage, as well as three in Eagle River and one on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The April 3 elections were marked by widespread ballot shortages and ballot-box closures, which have caused the Anchorage Assembly and Gruenstein’s office to examine what went wrong. The Assembly certified the election last week on an 8-3 vote, pending results of any recount. Read More »
Requiring an identification card to vote is only a superficial remedy to avoid voter fraud. Take a look at Puerto Rico, the original voter-ID state. With the focus on voter-ID laws going on in the U.S., conservatives should take a moment to study Puerto Rico’s previous primary before placing all their bets on a piece of plastic with a photo. The island implemented these laws as early as 1980 under then Governor Carlos Romero Barceló (a Democrat). To vote, voters must show up to their precinct, show their state issued voter-ID card (tarjeta electoral), match the card and name to the list and lastly, sign. The Electoral Commission (CEE in Spanish) has a database of signatures for every registered voter that it can use to compare them if doubts arise over said voter’s vote (pardon the redundancy). Read More »
When — if ever — does a clerical error become an “irregularity” under Part 20 of the Canada Elections Act, sufficient to judicially overturn an election? That question has never been tested, but it is now in an Ontario courtroom, and the decision may have a huge and unknowable impact on how Canadian elections — federal and provincial — are administered. Ontario Justice Thomas Lederer originally set aside five days for hearings into the contested federal election of Etobicoke Centre, narrowly won by Conservative Ted Opitz over Liberal incumbent Borys Wrzesnewskyj — a 26-vote difference, confirmed by judicial recount, now appealed. On Day One, Lederer expressed some skepticism that an extreme interpretation of the section would be in the public interest. He is quoted as having observed that thousands of people are involved in running elections, adding that “It would appear inevitable that some sort of mistakes are going to be made,” and suggesting that allowing blind application of procedural rules to get in the way of legitimate voting could itself “create distrust” among the voting public. Truer words were never spoken by a judge. Read More »
The Anchorage Assembly voted 8 to 3 Thursday to finally certify the flawed April 3 city election, subject to the results of a recount of 15 precincts. The election was plagued by ballot shortages at precincts all around town. Some people voted on sample ballots that couldn’t be counted until after election day. Some would-be voters said they gave up and went home. But a private lawyer hired to advise the Assembly on certification told the Assembly it can’t arbitrarily decide not to certify the election. Read More »
On Monday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously voided the results of a special election for a state House seat in Tulsa. The court’s order came after a series of problems cast doubt on the true outcome of the election. … The Court, after reviewing the “totality of the evidence presented,” found it “impossible to determine with mathematical certainty which candidate is entitled to a certificate of election” and thus voided the election entirely. In the wake of the order – and due to the delays occasioned by the case – the state board of elections is going to keep the seat vacant until it can be filled at this November’s general election. Read More »
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has invalidated the April 3 House District 71 special election. The 8-0 court ruling means no one won the contested election between Democrat Dan Arthrell and Republican Katie Henke, and the district will go unrepresented in the state House of Representativeness until next year. “It is impossible to determine with mathematical certainty which candidate is entitled to a certificate of election,” the ruling by Chief Justice Steve Taylor says. “Therefore, the certificate of election issued by the Tulsa County Election Board is invalidated and the election is void.” Read More »
Federal law does not require states and localities to use a particular method of recounting ballots in elections for non-federal offices, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday. The court affirmed a district judge’s ruling dismissing a suit by Martin Crowley against the state of Nevada and the Churchill County clerk. Crowley sought declaratory relief and damages after a recount of a 2006 election for justice of the peace, which he lost by 26 votes, failed to change the results. Crowley brought suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and Sec. 301 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. HAVA was enacted in response to problems in Florida and elsewhere during the 2002 elections, and established standards for the conduct of federal elections and authorized payments to state and local governments to replace antiquated voting systems. Read More »

One year, five months and 25 days after voters cast their ballots, Hamilton County declared a winner Friday in the 2010 election for juvenile court judge. Democrat Tracie Hunter beat Republican John Williams by 71 votes in what is believed to be the longest election in county history. Hunter trailed Williams by 23 votes after the election on Nov. 2, 2010, but a court order to count about 300 contested provisional ballots put her over the top. The long, politically-charged fight over the ballots became an early skirmish between Democrats and Republicans in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, as both sides angled to shape voting rules and policies. Read More »
After Minnesota took eight excruciating months to decide that Al Franken had beaten Norm Coleman in the 2008 U.S. Senate race, followed by the close (but not nearly as close as Coleman-Franken) 2010 gubernatorial race which resulted in a recount and raised the possibility that no winner would be sworn in on inauguration day, Minnesotans may feel a little cursed, a little shell-shocked and occasionally wondering what the rest of the country thinks is wrong with us election-wise. Those two experiences do suggest that – contrary to its national reputation as a solid blue state – Minnesota is very evenly divided politically in state races. But to those who understand the law and mechanics of elections, the two recounts also showed the Minnesota is a national model in the nuts and bolts of running elections and, when the elections are very close, running recounts that that inspire trust. At least that was the overwhelming sense of a panel of election experts that met yesterday at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School. Read More »
Talk about throwing good money after bad. Taxpayers will shell out about $1 million to elect a replacement for disgraced Brooklyn pol Carl Kruger — who pleaded guilty to taking more than $1 million in bribes — although the eventual winner will spend no more than eight months in office. That’s because Kruger’s 27th District state Senate seat will be wiped off the map by the redistricting process by the end of the year. There still hasn’t been a winner declared in the March 20 special election to replace Kruger — who resigned in disgrace in December — between Republican David Storobin and Democratic Councilman Lew Fidler. Storobin unofficially won by a mere two votes. So now, officials will recount all 22,000 ballots by hand — a lengthy process that could take months and hours upon hours of overtime at the Board of Elections. But the Legislature will adjourn for the year in June, which means the eventual winner may never cast a vote in Albany. Read More »
Two voters in the disputed House District 71 election appear to have had their preferences counted twice because of human errors at separate precincts, state and local election officials said. Meanwhile, two other ballots that apparently were counted by election machines – but somehow were never transferred to the Tulsa County Election Board for safekeeping – are part of a growing legal controversy that could decide the ultimate winner in the April 3 contest between Republican Katie Henke and Democrat Dan Arthrell. On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court stopped any further action on the election by the Tulsa County Election Board, the state Election Board or Tulsa County District Court. The high court scheduled the dispute for oral arguments before a referee next Wednesday. On election night, Arthrell won by three votes, but Henke asked for a recount. When sealed boxes of ballots from the vote were opened last week for the recount, election officials found four fewer ballots than the machines reported. Read More »
Two voters in the disputed House District 71 election appear to have had their preferences counted twice because of human errors at separate precincts, state and local election officials say. Meanwhile, two other ballots that apparently were counted by election machines — but somehow were never transferred to the Tulsa County Election Board for safekeeping — are part of a growing legal controversy that could decide the ultimate winner in the April 3 contest between Republican Katie Henke and Democrat Dan Arthrell. On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court stopped any further action on the election by the Tulsa County Election Board, the State Election Board or Tulsa County District Court. The high court scheduled the dispute for oral arguments before a referee April 25. Read More »
The resolution of a hotly contested special election for an Oklahoma House seat representing Tulsa moved a step closer Monday. At issue is the winner of the special election for House District 71, which pitted Democrat Dan Arthrell against Republican Katie Henke. Greg Albert, an Oklahoma Supreme Court referee, heard arguments in the case Monday. A proceeding in Tulsa County District Court was put on hold pending action by the state’s high court, which may or may not take the case. Attorneys for both sides said they can agree to a series of facts in the case. Read More »
Attorneys for both candidates involved in a contested special election for an Oklahoma House of Representatives seat from Tulsa asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday to take the case. Democratic candidate Dan Arthrell, whose three-vote lead in this month’s election was overturned in a recount, said he asked the court to intervene. A court referee did not immediately issue a recommendation for whether the court would take the case. The filing comes after initial returns showed Arthrell defeating Republican Katie Henke by three votes in the April 3 special election to fill the seat vacated by Republican Rep. Dan Sullivan. Henke then asked for a manual recount, which was held Tuesday. Arthrell received four fewer votes, resulting in a one-vote win for Henke. Shortly after the Tulsa County Election Board certified the results, two uncounted ballots — both for Arthrell — were found in a bin beneath an election machine. Read More »

Thrust into the partisan hothouse of back-to-back statewide recounts, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie went out of his way to take on a referee persona despite the “D” after his name. But on the voter ID constitutional amendment now headed to the November ballot, he’s openly taken a side. Ritchie has steadily increased his opposition as the proposal advanced, to the point of arguing it will deprive voters of their rights. In the process, he has drawn blowback from Republicans and other supporters of the voting-law change, who accuse the state’s top elections officer of going too far. Ritchie acknowledged that he’s stepped outside of his default “stay out” approach to politics. ”I’ve taken a very strong position in general that my job is to run the elections and be a partner with local election officials, and I stay out of other people’s lives and campaigns and their work,” Ritchie said. “But when something is about elections and about our basic election system, then I always take a more active role.” Read More »
Florida had the ‘hanging chad’ now Tulsa has the ‘missing ballots’ and more twists and turns in a state house race. Democrat Dan Arthrell won the House District 71 special election on election night April 3rd by three votes. The results were challenged and during a hand re-count yesterday, Republican Katie Henke won by one vote with her tally remaining the same from election night but Arthrell lost four votes that just disappeared. Even with the questions and missing votes, the Tulsa County Election Board certified Henke as the winner. Then election officials found two missing ballots in a ballot box that were not part of the hand recount. Read More »
When some Anchorage precincts ran out of ballots on Election Day, frustrated voters were asked to cast substitute ballots. They selected their mayor using ballots printed for faraway precincts. They marked their vote on a controversial gay rights proposal on blue sample ballots or hastily made photocopies. On Thursday, 1,800 of those makeshift ballots were being counted at City Hall even as election officials and city leaders work to untangle just what went wrong April 3. The replacement ballots couldn’t be counted alongside regular ballots the night of the election because they’re incompatible with voting machines, said City Clerk Barbara Gruenstein. ”These are the ones that people showed up at their own home precincts … but there was a shortage of ballots,” Gruenstein said. “So they voted a sample ballot that won’t slide through the machine.” The city will release results of the 1,800 “unscannable” votes as soon as they become available, Gruenstein said. Read More »
A hearing will resume next week in a Tulsa County courtroom over the outcome of a special election for state House District 71 seat. Democrat Dan Arthrell and Republican Katie Henke are seeking to replace former state Representative Dan Sullivan. In that special election April 3, 2012, Arthrell won by three votes. Henke asked for a recount and on Wednesday, the Tulsa County Election Board certified Henke as the winner by one vote. After the board certified the election, two uncounted ballots for Arthrell were found inside a ballot box. The election board believes the two ballots were caught somehow, maybe on the edge of the drop box underneath the voting machine. Read More »
The Anchorage Assembly has voted ‘no’ on appointing an independent council to investigate the Municipal Election and called a special work session to review the situation. The announcement comes a week after polling places ran out of ballots. Rhonda Matthews holds her right to vote dear. She’s voted in every election since she was 18, except when she was stationed overseas with the Air Force. She is one of the people who contact the ACLU of Alaska to report that she was not able to vote during the municipal election. “I don’t care what side of the politics you’re on, it has to do with the right to vote and I was denied that,” Matthews said. Matthews first went to her voting precinct at Klatt Elementary School just after 7 pm on April 3. That’s where she says she was turned away by an election worker in the parking lot who told her they’d run out of ballots and directed her to vote at the Alaska Club on O’malley. Read More »
A Tulsa judge is expected to issue a ruling early next week after meeting Thursday with attorneys and candidates in an Oklahoma House of Representatives race being decide by a handful of votes. Initial results in an April 3 special election for the District 71 seat determined Democrat Dan Arthrell defeated Republican Katie Henke by three votes. A Wednesday recount requested by Henke found she won by one vote. But after the Tulsa County Election Board certified Henke as the winner, two more ballots cast for Arthrell were found under a ballot box. Read More »
Tulsa County election officials certified a new winner in the razor-thin House District 71 election Wednesday – only to discover two more ballots that apparently had remained unsecured in election equipment for days and which would reverse the results again if counted. The whole mess will be taken to court on Thursday morning for Tulsa County District Judge Daman Cantrell to figure out. The day started with Democrat Dan Arthrell ahead by three votes in the April 3 election. At the request of Republican candidate Katie Henke, Cantrell ordered a recount Wednesday, which resulted in Arthrell losing four votes and Henke being certified as the winner by one vote. But several hours later, acting at the urging of Arthrell’s supporters, election officials reinspected election equipment and found two more ballots from the election – both for Arthrell, enough to swing the returns in the other direction. Read More »
The results of a recount that changed the outcome of an Oklahoma House race by one vote have been thrown into question after Tulsa County Election Board officials reported finding two more ballots for the losing candidate Wednesday night. Earlier in the day, county Election Board officials recounted ballots by hand that were cast in the House District 71 special election initially won April 3 by Democrat Dan Arthrell 1,418-1,415 over Republican Katie Henke. The recount determined that Henke received 1,415 votes during the election, while Arthrell collected 1,414 votes, Tulsa County Election Board Secretary Patty Bryant said. With four fewer votes, Arthrell ended up losing the race by one vote, and the recount result was certified by the board. ”It was eating on us, and we were thinking `There’s got to be a reason for this,’ ” Bryant said. Two technicians who work for the board looked through 15 precinct ballot boxes and found two ballots in one of them, Bryant said. ”We immediately contacted the state Election Board and Secretary Paul Ziriax and the assistant district attorney that helps the Election Board with our counsel,” Bryant said. Read More »

Update: The Tulsa County election board said they’ve discovered two missing ballots. The ballots were found inside a ballot box that was not retrieved by a precinct official on the night of the election. There’s a meeting Thursday with a District judge to determine what happens next. Wednesday’s recount changed the winner from Democrat Dan Arthrell to Republican Katie Henke.
A recount changed the outcome of a state house race. Election Day totals had a Democrat winning by three votes – but a recount Wednesday put the Republican ahead by one. Republican Katie Henke been certified as the winner of the race. Democrat Dan Arthrell finished ahead by three votes on election night, April 3, 2012, but lost 4 votes in the recount at the Tulsa County Election Board office Wednesday afternoon. Democrats want to know how it happened that the number of ballots counted on Election Day is different than the number of ballots counted Wednesday. Read More »
A recount has changed the outcome of a special election to fill an Oklahoma House of Representatives seat from Tulsa with the Republican nominee now the apparent winner by one vote. Tulsa County Election Board Secretary Patty Bryant told The Associated Press Wednesday that Republican Katie Henke received 1,415 votes to 1,414 to Democrat Dan Arthrell. Read More »
A recount will be held in a special election for an Oklahoma House seat that unofficial returns show the Democratic candidate winning by three votes, officials said Tuesday. Hand-counting of ballots is set to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Tulsa County District Court and was requested by Republican candidate Katie Henke. Unofficial returns from the April 3 election showed Democrat Dan Arthrell beating Henke by three votes in the race for the seat from House District 71, which runs along the Arkansas River in central Tulsa. ”Mostly I’ll be sitting and watching, really there’s not a large role for me,” Arthrell, the public policy director for the nonprofit Community Service Council in Tulsa, said Tuesday. Henke, a school teacher, did not immediately return a phone call for comment. Read More »
When the votes were counted in Tuesday’s election in St. Louis County, hundreds were missing. Poll workers did not properly close out several voting machines. NewsChannel5 learned there were 595 votes that weren’t counted Tuesday night when election board workers went home around midnight. Election officials say those votes are now in, and part of the current unofficial totals. Rita Heard Days is the county’s director of elections and says five electronic voting machines were not properly closed out by poll workers Tuesday night. ”This morning we went out and got the machines that had the questionable closures and brought them in and captured those votes,” said Days. … Days says all the missed votes were added to the unofficial election totals Wednesday. Read More »
Several dozen pairs of eyeballs will examine ballots from Wellington’s disputed election when a hand count begins at 8 a.m. Saturday in the county elections office, the finale — or so many hope — to a string of lawsuits and weeks of confusion over the voters’ choices for three village council seats. ”Just get it done,” candidate Al Paglia said. “The sooner, the better.” On Wednesday, within a half-day of the village’s canvassing board deciding that a manual recount was the only way to swear in winners indisputably, seven Wellington residents filed a complaint in Palm Beach County Circuit Court asking for just that. Judge Robin Rosenberg on Thursday ordered a manual recount of the March 13 races, which yielded incorrect winners because of an apparent software error. Read More »
A hand recount could come soon for Wellington residents weary over disputed election results that have left the village council in limbo. On Wednesday, one day after the village’s canvassing board said it wanted a hand recount, seven Wellington residents filed a complaint, as did council candidate John Greene, seeking a court-ordered recount of Wellington’s March 13 races. The county’s elections office and the canvassing board Tuesday agreed to file lawsuits for the recount, but did not say when those filings would happen. ”We’re not going to wait on them,” said Greene, who filed a complaint late Wednesday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. ”If a hand recount is what is going to appease everybody, we want it to happen. We want to move on.” Read More »
Puerto Rico’s election commission says it will for the first time in history recount thousands of votes cast during the island’s local primary last week following allegations of irregularities. Commission President Hector Conty said Tuesday that he ordered a recount after Puerto Rico’s two main parties accused each other of fraud and inflating the vote count. Read More »
In Palm Beach County’s latest voting embarrassment, Wellington decided Tuesday to toss out its tainted March 13 election results while Secretary of State Ken Detzner pledged to find answers and County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher continued to blame a computer software glitch for the tabulating turmoil. After a Monday recount showed the elections office had declared the wrong winners in two of three races, Wellington’s canvassing board voted to scrap the results and scheduled a decision for Tuesday on whether to instead accept the revised vote tallies. That would allow John Greene in Council Seat 1 and Matt Willhite in Seat 4 to be sworn in after it appeared they lost their races last week. But the decision to consider the recount numbers did little to clear confusion surrounding the race and how to resolve it. Read More »
The Wellington council candidates wrongly named winners during last week’s election aren’t convinced Monday’s vote retabulation was accurate, nor will they give up their seats to the apparent winners. But the winners, whom Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said were denied victory because of a software glitch, have no doubt Monday’s count was correct, and one has taken legal action. “It’s my responsibility to make sure the village of Wellington voters are heard. I’m filing it on their behalf,” said Vice Mayor Matt Willhite, who filed a complaint Tuesday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court against Wellington’s canvassing board and whose campaign declared him a “decisive” winner. The county elections office mistakenly named candidates Al Paglia and Shauna Hostetler winners in two council races and certified the March 13 results to the state on Friday. But a routine audit on Monday revealed that Willhite had easily defeated Paglia, while John Greene had edged past Hostetler. On Tuesday, the Wellington canvassing board that oversees election results tossed out the March 13 numbers and scheduled a meeting March 27 to decide whether to certify Monday’s retabulated numbers instead. But confusion and emotion were running high on Tuesday. Read More »








