Overlooked Ballots Counted; Majority For Riley

Siegelman Gets 76 Votes, Riley Receives 99

POSTED: 8:40 a.m. CST November 8, 2002

MOBILE, Ala. -- Election officials Thursday opened 187 absentee ballots in Mobile County that had been overlooked in a courthouse file cabinet. Republican Bob Riley got the majority of these votes -- 99 -- adding to his disputed lead over Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman.

Circuit Court Clerk Susan Wilson said a representative from Siegelman's campaign pointed out the missing ballots, and that she accepted "full responsibility" for overlooking them. Siegelman's campaign noticed that ballot records "suggested that there were absentee ballots that had not been processed and counted."

Mobile attorney Matt McDonald, representing the Republican Party, challenged all 187 ballots before opening them while seated in probate court beside Daphne attorney Mark Wolfe, who represented the Democratic Party.

McDonald said he challenged the ballots because state law says election officials should have delivered them beginning at noon on Tuesday, the day of the general election. He said the challenges could be withdrawn later. Challenged ballots are investigated by the district attorney.

State law also says the ballots should be opened and recorded in "the same manner as those absentee ballots previously counted." Attorney General Bill Pryor issued an opinion, saying Thursday's late count was legal.

Election officials said one of the 187 ballots was "spoiled" because it lacked required information. The others were counted.

Siegelman got 76 votes; Riley, 99; Libertarian John Sophocleus had one vote; and there was one write-in vote. Not every ballot contained a vote for governor, which accounted for the difference with the total ballots.

Wilson, a Democrat, said the absentee ballots had been stored "where they were supposed to be. I take full responsibility" for missing them.

"I appreciate the way she handled the situation," said Wolfe, "unlike in Baldwin County."

An apparent computer glitch in Baldwin County threw the governor's race results into dispute, giving Riley a 3,195-vote lead out of 1.3 million votes cast.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2002

Answers

Uncounted ballots create bigger job than expected

By Kevin Vaughan and Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News November 8, 2002

The number of still-uncounted ballots that could decide a Colorado congressional race is hundreds - and perhaps thousands - more than originally thought.

The new estimates Thursday from officials in Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties that they have as many as 6,231 "provisional" ballots offered hope to Democrat Mike Feeley, who at last count stood 386 votes behind Republican Bob Beauprez in the battle to represent the new 7th District in Congress.

A day earlier, the clerks had put the estimates as high as 3,800 ballots.

While Beauprez claimed victory at a rally Thursday, Feeley's campaign took solace in the new numbers, urging everyone to wait until the ballots are verified and counted, probably next week.

"Bob Beauprez, being an old dairy farmer, should know better than to count his chickens before they hatch," said Matt Moseley, spokesman for the Feeley campaign. "They're being very methodical about this. I don't know what the rush of everyone is. There's a process. Let's count the votes."

Beauprez's spokesman, Allen Fuller, referred calls late Thursday to state Republican Party officials, who could not be reached for comment.

At issue are the provisional ballots, being used for the first time in a general election in Colorado. The relatively new law, which got its first run in the August primary, was created to let people vote at their local polling places even if they ran into trouble on Election Day.

For example, voters who moved but didn't update their addresses or who were mistakenly left off the rolls were allowed to cast the provisional ballots on Tuesday. Also allowed to vote under the law were people who requested absentee ballots ahead of time but didn't use them.

County clerks have to go through them, verifying each one individually to make sure, for example, that someone didn't vote twice. Once that is done, the valid ballots will be counted.

The number of those provisional ballots ballooned Thursday.

In Arapahoe County, for example, officials originally estimated that they had 500 provisional ballots. Thursday, they put the number at closer to 2,500.

In Jefferson County, the estimate jumped from 300 to 731.

Adams County officials stuck to their original estimate of 1,500 to 3,000 provisional ballots.

Assuming the highest estimates are accurate, as many as 6,231 provisional ballots still need to be counted.

Still unclear Thursday was how many of the provisional ballots are from voters in the 7th District, as opposed to the other congressional districts that cut through those counties.

Moseley said he was particularly heartened by the jump in the number of provisional ballots in Arapahoe County, where Feeley grabbed about 52 percent of the vote on Election Day.

The Feeley-Beauprez battle wasn't the only one that could be affected by the provisional ballots.

Also in the balance was the Adams County commissioner race, where Democrat Larry Pace lead Republican Ron Stowell by 48 votes.

County clerks promised only that the count will be long and tedious.

"I'm going to take as long as is allowed by state law to make sure we get it right," said Arapahoe County Clerk Tracy Baker.

Adams County Clerk Carol Snyder said the outcome in her county may not be known until mid-November, when the vote is certified. Even that total will be subject to a mandatory recount in races decided by less than one-half of 1 percent of the votes.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2002

I am so glad this isn't about Miami-Dade, or Florida for that matter. LOL

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2002