RE: BallotNow recount still a possibility

["Some Guy" <someguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd bet that the Boulder County Fire Fighter Association would demand a
recount. A half of a percent would make it automatic, but a district judge
could force it. However, if forced by a judge there will be a cost involved,
and I believe a bond deposit.

The real pain-in-the-butt stems from the 40 day limit. We're already four
days past the election, and the counting is still not completed. The BCFFA
may still win out after the provisionals are done being counted. Tough to
ask the clerk for a recount when the original count hasn't yet been
completed. If the count is completed by the 14th (statutory deadline) then
that's more time eating into the BCFFA ability to demand a recount.

There's also a group that calls itself No on 1B that might demand a recount.

paul


-----Original Message-----
From: Neal McBurnett [mailto:neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 11:13 AM
To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: BallotNow recount still a possibility

County Issue 1B, on the helicopter tax, has a margin of defeat of 579
votes.  That is currently 0.81% of the total voting "NO".

        Vote Count      Percentage
YES     70669           49.80%
NO      71248           50.20%

If that margin falls to 0.5% or less (by around 200 votes to perhaps
370 votes), after counting a few hundred damaged ballots, and about
2500 provisional ballots, a recount would be necessary.  It seems
unlikely to me, but possible if one side of the other is
over-represented among provisional voters.

At first I thought it was already within the recount range, but
it depends on how you calculate the percentages.  The margin is
only 0.4% of the total vote, but is 0.81% of the highest number of
votes cast (71248).  The article in the Camera about this didn't
clarify it very well.

If a recount ends up being necessary, it will be interesting to see
how BallotNow handles it.  Tom noted earlier this year on this list
that it would happen via a rescan of the paper ballots:

 http://coloradovoter.net/bcv-archive/msg00886.html
 > From: "Halicki, Tom" <thalicki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 > Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 11:36:12 -0600
 >
 > Further, I never said the digital ballot image is the official
 > record of the vote.  Quite the contrary.  In the event of a recount,
 > the paper ballots are counted again except that questions of voter
 > intent on a ballot that have been resolved by two election judges of
 > different parties must be resolved the same way during the recount.
 > I made that clear to you, Margot, Scott and Neal when we met here at
 > the Elections office to discuss sampling approaches.

Note that requirement about resolving questions of voter intent the
same way the second time around.  Is there a citation for that
requirement?  I wonder how that is done in practice using BallotNow?

And I wonder how much help the BallotNow software provides in focusing
in on a single race.  Do the resolution teams have to carefully find
the race and ignore all requests to resolve other races?

Below are some relevant citations from the Colorado Revised Statutes.

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60

http://www.leg.state.co.us/ =>
 http://www.michie.com/colorado.html =>
 http://198.187.128.12/colorado/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=fs-main.htm&2.0


1-10.5-101. Recounts required - expenses.
 (b) A recount of any election contest shall be held if the difference
 between the highest number of votes cast in that election contest and
 the next highest number of votes cast in that election contest is
 less than or equal to one-half of one percent of the highest vote
 cast in that election contest. A recount shall occur only after the
 canvass board certifies the original vote count.

1-10.5-103
 Any recount of the votes shall be completed no later than the
 fortieth day after the election.

1-10.5-108
 (2) Unless otherwise directed by the secretary of state, the ballots
 cast shall be recounted utilizing the same procedures, methods, and
 processes that were utilized for the original count of the ballots
 cast.