At least 26 Hamilton County voters cast two ballots in the November election, but no extra votes were actually counted. Elections officials say they caught the double votes and are investigating why they happened. If voters intentionally cast more than one ballot, they will be referred to prosecutors for possible criminal prosecution. In most cases, though, investigators believe the votes were cast in error. They say several ballots involved elderly people who sent in absentee ballots and later cast provisional ballots at their polling place. “The system worked the way it should,” said Tim Burke, president of the Board of Elections and leader of the county’s Democratic Party. “The appropriate number of votes were counted. Whether these particular voters acted properly, they did not impact the election because only one vote was counted.”
His Republican counterpart on the board, GOP chairman Alex Triantafilou, said investigators still are trying to determine why each of the 26 voters cast more than one ballot.
“I always have some level of concern when people cast two ballots, but I feel the board is doing what it needs to do to rectify it,” Triantafilou said.
Despite heated rhetoric in the run-up to most elections these days, most government and academic studies have found that intentional, in-person voter fraud is rare in the United States. It does happen, though, and a handful of cases in Hamilton County have been prosecuted in the past few years.
Full Article: 26 voted twice in November but only counted once.