BREAKING: Franklin County reports a counting error; they're reducing Balderson's tally by 190.

[brooklynite]

[honest.abe]

1. Interesting.

Wish that had another "0".

[LisaL]

8. Yep, that would have been nice.

[irisblue]

2. Source? Thx

[RandySF]

4. I just heard on MSNBC

[tblue37]

3. K&R for visibility. nt

[R B Garr]

5. Dang!

Interesting...

[blue neen]

6. Holy cow!

[C_U_L8R]

7. Gee, I wonder how that happened.

A couple hundred here, a couple hundred there and a whole election could be stolen.

[RandySF]

9. There's nothing like working in an election office during a high-profile race

And when it's this close, a typo can be a big deal.

[shraby]

12. One of the precincts hadn't been added in.

[C_U_L8R]

15. But he had more votes than he should have.

That doesn't sound like a missing precinct. Maybe a double counted precinct?

(On edit: nevermind, the official letters below made clearer)

[LisaL]

19. I think OP meant Balderson's lead is decreased by 190 votes. O'Connor did get extra 190 votes.

[spanone]

10. kornacki is just reporting this on msnbc

[RandySF]

11. Looks like recount territory.

[bearsfootball516]

14. Provisional ballots would have to swing strongly for O'Connor for that.

Balderson was up 1,754 votes, or 0.9 percent. After the addition of O'Connor's votes, it'll be 1,564, which isn't going to drop that 0.9 percent to 0.5, which is what is needed for a recount.

[LisaL]

16. There is more than 8,000 provisional and absentee ballots still to be counted.

So it's possible.

[bearsfootball516]

17. This is true.

Cross your fingers.

[Fred Sanders]

18. 8435 provisional and mail in ballots yet to be counted, not unti 11 days after Election Day, by law.

Rather sensible so any all Election Day issues can be addressed, like this, and a final call on the result can be held in calm.

[AlexSFCA]

35. that's a lot of ballots

I hope they will count each and every ballot. There is still a very good chance to win.

[triron]

43. So O'Connor would need to gain about 500 more votes out of over 8000. Doable.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Danny O'Conner tweeted too + Franklin County Press release

Link to tweet

TEXT

Danny O'Connor
✔
@dannyoconnor1
US House candidate, OH-12

🚨 6:05 PM UPDATE 🚨

We just netted 190 VOTES from Franklin County!

We're confident DANNY WILL WIN once ALL the votes are counted, but we spent EVERYTHING we had on the Special Election.

Please donate $5 to make sure EVERY LAST VOTE is counted fairly.https://bit.ly/2vrhrAg
6:05 PM - Aug 8, 2018

Link to tweet

TEXT

Owen Daugherty @_owendaugherty

Confirmed: O’Connor nabs another 190 votes due to counting error in #OH12. Here’s the press release from the Franklin County Board of Elections.
5:47 PM - Aug 8, 2018

[Takket]

20. the numbers..........

Balderson 101772
O'Connor 100208
Lead: 1564 (0.8%)

0.5% triggers automatic recount

8543 provisional/absentee ballots need to be counted yet

If O'Conner wins those 4528 to 4015 (53% of the uncounted ballots) he would close the gap to 50.25% to 49.75% and trigger the automatic recount.

If O'Connor wins those 5054 to 3489 (59% of the uncounted ballots) he would take a 1 vote lead (but obviously recount would still be done).

The first scenario is likely to happen if what I ehar about provisional/absentee favoring Dems is true. The second is a longer shot but could happen too.

[LisaL]

21. Provisional ballots do favor democrats. Not sure about absentee, I guess it depends from

what county they are from.

[Make7]

22. Ballots Cast By County

From: https://vote.ohio.gov/   (click on Ballots Cast tab)

[lancelyons]

42. My guess is those provisionals are mostly people that where purged from voter rolls.

Most of these probably lean democratic.

hard to predict the absentee.

[Honeycombe8]

23. MSNBC guy said absentee ballots usu. favor Republicans 'cause of military.

And my guess is they also include more seniors.

[VOX]

31. Unfortunately, you're correct.

Would that it were not so.

[BamaRefugee]

38. and include lots of Russians

[Honeycombe8]

24. I think whether a provisional ballot is allowed is up to local election officers...

so it's not a given. They could disallow many of them. They are provisional because there was an issue with the voter's registration or address or something.

[FBaggins]

28. Yes, but backed up by judges

And ~85% have been counted in recent Ohio elections.

[Boomer]

41. The issues are usually easily resolved

The most common reason for a provisional ballot is that a registered voter ended up at the wrong polling station and decided to vote provisional rather than drive over to another location.

[Honeycombe8]

44. Often that's because he moved, so his address is wrong on his registration.

I don't trust the Republicans or Russians. That's easy pickins to throw away a few Democratic votes.

[grantcart]

26. OK I hope he gets the 1 vote win just to see Trump lose his mind.

[FBaggins]

32. It seems highly unlikely unless more counting errors come out in our favor

I'd expect O'Connor to outperform prior Democratic candidates in the district in absentee ballots, but still at a lower percentage than his performance in the election-day voting... and only 1100 of them are from Franklin County ( a significantly lower percentage of the total vote than the county played in the election overall). The provisional ballots have to go heavily in our favor.

[gulliver]

39. It would be great if the provisional ballots turned the election.

I'm thinking the vast majority of them are likely Dems, possibly victimized by Republican voter suppression efforts. A win based on votes that Republicans tried and failed to suppress would be nice.

[FBaggins]

40. Except that there is no surge of provisionals

The number (as a proportion of the total vote) isn't markedly higher than in the last few elections. So we would have to imagine a simultaneous surge of suppressed voters showing up (when Ohio has been accused of it in prior cycles) AND an unusual drop in all the other reasons for provisionals.

[gulliver]

34. It was 3,435 provisonal ballots as of yesterday.

I'm betting the lion's share of those are minorities victimized by Ohio's voter purge and other suppression efforts. So I think we'll get a ton of votes out of that 3,435, at least I hope so.

[AlexSFCA]

36. will every provisional ballot be verified and counted?

[gulliver]

37. I don't know.

I understand the folks who got them had to swear out an affadavit stating they were entitled to vote, so at least they felt strongly that their vote was legitimate.

[dchill]

25. So they're still making "counting errors."

I bet they practice.

[FBaggins]

27. Keep in mind that counties run elections

The parts of Franklin County that are in the 12th district my lean moderately red, but the county itself (and likely most responsible for the county) are is solidly blue.

Moreover... they found a net 190 votes for O'Connor.

[Blue_true]

29. The county is very blue. nt

[YOHABLO]

30. We need to make voting in this country sacrosanct. That is if we want a Democracy.

[uponit7771]

33. +1, but you know ... its better to own 41234234 guns per person cause the 2nd

... said so.