First the good news::
The final vote tallies from Madison County were released this morning, and they continue to build the small lead that Republican congressional candidate Steve Stivers has over his Democratic rival, Mary Jo Kilroy.
With provisional and late-absentee ballots added to the total, Stivers picked up 373 votes from Madison County and Kilroy gained 258. That enlarges Stivers’ overall lead by 115 votes, giving him a 594-vote lead out of some 300,000 votes counted.
The bad news:
The race remains undecided. Stivers clings to his narrow lead with all votes from Republican-leaning Madison and Union counties now accounted for, but Democratic-leaning Franklin County still has thousands of provisional ballots that have yet to be added to the total. Kilroy’s aides predict that once that happens, the lead will move into her column.
More below on the legal issues involved.
This race might very well come down to court battles:
An appeals court ruled today that a federal judge erred in determining that Franklin County’s controversial provisional ballots can be counted.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the issue involves state law – not federal – and sent the case back to the Ohio Supreme Court, where it started. The unanimous ruling was made by Judges Jeffrey S. Sutton, Cornelia G. Kennedy and David W. McKeague.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said she would not appeal, but urged justices to “quickly affirm their previous clear guidance ‘to liberally construe election laws in favor of the right to vote,’ so as not to disenfranchise approximately 1,000 Ohio voters with a hyper-technical interpretation of Ohio law.”
So what is this hyper-technical issue? Voters name and signature:
At the heart of the legal debate are questions focusing on 1,000 of the 27,000 provisional ballots cast in Franklin County. The ballots were placed in envelopes without all the required signatures or markings showing which form of identification the voter used. Provisional ballot envelopes in Franklin County expressly stated that name and signature were “required.”
Liberals have now come to the point that you don’t even have to give your name properly in order to vote. That’s right. A ballot with clear instructions that require your name and signature is just too much.
So this is the cold hard truth: Democrats are going to do everything in their power to count every “possible” vote in Democratic Franklin County. I can’t say I am optimistic about the outcome. As the saying goes, “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat.” Alas, this is all too close.
Steve Maley
Daniel Horowitz
Moe Lane
Jake Walker
Victoria Coates
Aaron Gardner
Who is at fault?
Yil Wednesday, November 26th at 12:44PM EST (link)I’m a bit confused. Are these ballots from valid voters who were required to vote provisionally for some reason and because they only signed their name or printed it at the top, but not both, are having their votes rejected? Seems really silly to me if they were registered voters, why wouldn’t their vote being counted be the goal? No fraud there.
From the quote however: “The ballots were placed in envelopes without all the required signatures or markings showing which form of identification the voter used. ” That doesn’t sound like the voter even did anything wrong. For instance, if on election day you were forced to vote provisionally and the worker at the poll didn’t check the box that indicates you showed them your driver’s license as your ID then your vote doesn’t count? You made no mistake, they did, and your vote doesn’t count? That’s crazy!
Perhaps it’s a mixture of both cases lumped together, but that quote seems to indicate the voter did nothing wrong and yet their vote won’t count.
Figures
Greg (Diary) Wednesday, November 26th at 1:06PM EST (link)The race remains undecided. Stivers clings to his narrow lead with all votes from Republican-leaning Madison and Union counties now accounted for, but Democratic-leaning Franklin County still has thousands of provisional ballots that have yet to be added to the total. Kilroy’s aides predict that once that happens, the lead will move into her column.
So, why is it that while Madison and Union Counties did their jobs, that Franklin County is still fussing around with provisional ballots? This is a situation open to fraud, IMO. Dems can look at the results with all the Republican areas in, and will know how many votes they need to overcome the Republican candidate’s advantage. So, why is it always the Democrat counties that get to lag behind everyone else?
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” — Chesterton
Fault is not the point
Kevin Holtsberry (Diary) Wednesday, November 26th at 1:29PM EST (link)I am not 100% sure who is at fault. The problem is that Democrats are presenting a position that argues that any and all votes should be counted regardless if they followed the law or not and even if it means increased opportunities for fraud.
I am of the opinion that rules and laws are put in place for a reason and they should be followed. The Dems position is the rules should be ignored if it means more votes. Convenient how these votes always turn out to be Democrats.
The law required id and if the ballots lack clear identification then they shouldn’t count.
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Kevin Holtsberry
larger counties take longer
charliehall Wednesday, November 26th at 1:46PM EST (link)And large counties tend to be urban and suburban counties, which tend to vote Democratic. (Most surburban counties used to vote Republican and that is why we are facing a Democratic President and Congress.)
Charlie Hall
Laws
Yil Wednesday, November 26th at 4:22PM EST (link)So if a voter does nothing wrong, but an election official does your vote shouldn’t count? How is that not going to invite partisan election officials in the future from “forgetting” to do something to invalidate votes if that behavior is rewarded?
As an example, on election day a nice older, but totally clueless, lady told me I wasn’t registered. I said, check again I just voted in the primary. She failed to find me a second time and suggested I vote provisionally, but upon hearing the word primary a poll watcher or something started looking through their list and found me. That brought over some supervisor who flipped through and found my name without a problem and all was good. But suppose that hadn’t happened and the lady, who can’t even look my name up correctly, failed to check a box or sign her name to my provisional ballot to indicate she saw my ID. Would you agree that my vote shouldn’t count because of something that nice, but confused, lady didn’t do?