Election recount ordered

["Paul Tiger" <tigerp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was a bit uncomfortable with the posting that I just saw here from Alan.
It had a lot of question marks embedded in it, and blanks that made me think
that things were missing. Though I have great disdain for the Camera, I
decided to repost their story as it looked more accurate than what I read.
This 'appears' to be more accurate. -- Paul Tiger
=====

The Daily Camera

Election recount ordered
About 300 ballots apparently were counted twice

By Mary Butler, Camera Staff Writer
November 15, 2003

Boulder County will recount the results of the Nov. 6 election because of an
error that occurred in the tallying process.
The recount is scheduled to start Monday.

"There appears to have been a deck that was counted twice," said Tom
Halicki, county election manager.

A deck contains about 300 ballots, which could change the outcome of the
Eldorado Springs sewage ballot issue. It was defeated by two votes.

Outside of the Eldorado Springs issue, Halicki said, "I don't anticipate the
recount to change an outcome."

Election officials worked Friday to pinpoint which ballots were counted
twice, so that only those ballots would be recounted. But Halicki said they
weren't able to accomplish that with 100 percent accuracy.

The Colorado secretary of state's office recommended that a full recount be
performed.

Halicki estimated that recounting the election's 76,487 ballots would take
two days, beginning Monday at 7 a.m., and cost "a few thousand dollars."

"This is not unheard of," Halicki said. Lisa Doran, spokeswoman for the
secretary of state's office, agreed.

"It's a human process," Doran said. "I don't think it's an inadequacy on the
part of the election personnel. ... The fact that the mistake was caught
shows that the system is working as it should."

The error was discovered as the county canvassed the election results for
the secretary of state's office. The county found it had more ballots
counted than it had envelopes in the system, Halicki said.

The problem appeared to have occurred when a deck was fed into the ballot
counting machine. Often the machine will issue an alert that an error has
been made in counting, meaning that the count must be deleted and restarted.
In this case, Halicki theorized, a deck was counted twice and the initial
count was never deleted.

The problem had nothing to do with the fact that the election was by mail
ballot only, he said.

Al Kolwicz, executive director of Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election
Results, said the mistake highlights a greater problem with the overall
system: a lack of transparency.

For instance, he said, members of his group who served as poll watchers were
barred from witnessing key ballot-counting activities.

"We're very uneasy about what's going on," Kolwicz said. "We're supposed to
be able to track, audit and know for sure."

But, he also said, "We're grateful the clerk's office discovered the problem
and is taking action."

Contact Mary Butler at butlerm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or (303) 473-1390.

Copyright 2003, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.