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TexasTowelie

(112,150 posts)
Mon Jan 2, 2017, 10:43 AM Jan 2017

Recount found thousands of errors, but no major flaws in state election system

Wisconsin’s first statewide presidential recount found no major problems with the state’s voting system, but it did reveal several errors affecting thousands of ballots that could spur local clerks to tighten procedures, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review of the results.

The recount revealed a yawn-inducing shift in the presidential election results — President-elect Donald Trump extended his lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton by 131 votes and total votes increased by about 400 out of nearly 3 million cast. Recount proponents had raised concerns about Russia possibly tampering with election results, but the recount found no evidence to support such claims.

However, the small net change in votes obscured that there were thousands of both positive and negative swings in the final totals.

At least 9,039 presidential votes weren’t counted correctly on Election Night, and only were added to the official results because of the recount, the State Journal review found. Another 2,161 votes were originally counted but later tossed out for reasons including to square vote totals with the number of voters who signed the poll book.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/recount-found-thousands-of-errors-but-no-major-flaws-in/article_4ad0fe2a-40d8-5cce-8d84-f3e33469c8f1.html

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Recount found thousands of errors, but no major flaws in state election system (Original Post) TexasTowelie Jan 2017 OP
In some cases, recount officials had to randomly discard a ballot. Demit Jan 2017 #1
Close their eyes and just pull one out of the middle of the stack? n/t MichMan Jan 2017 #2
Probably. Hopefully. Demit Jan 2017 #3
 

Demit

(11,238 posts)
1. In some cases, recount officials had to randomly discard a ballot.
Mon Jan 2, 2017, 11:25 AM
Jan 2017

"In some cases, such as when the number of ballots exceeded the number of voters who signed a poll book or when an absentee ballot envelope didn’t have complete information such as a witness address or signature, recount officials had to randomly discard a ballot. That’s because ballots can’t be traced to a specific voter."

I'm very curious to know how they decided which ones to "randomly" discard.

 

Demit

(11,238 posts)
3. Probably. Hopefully.
Mon Jan 2, 2017, 12:49 PM
Jan 2017

Although that presumes that, after the recount of ballots for either Trump or Clinton, the ballots were restacked into one stack again. Even there, because there would be several hundreds of ballots from each precinct, I'm having trouble picturing a single stack.

I just wish that whoever reported the story had asked what the physical process actually was.

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