Democrats leads Va. attorney general’s race following ‘voting machine mystery’

[grantcart]

Source: WTVR.com

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – The Richmond Electoral Board met Monday to go over votes cast last week in the race for Virginia attorney general.

Republican Senator Mark Obenshain led Democrat Senator Mark Herring by 17 votes on Sunday night. Following Monday’s meeting, Herring picked up 135 votes, according to The Democratic Party of Virginia.

So why the sudden pickup in votes?

On election night, poll workers in precinct 501 failed to calculate one voting machine.

Election workers in various other areas also failed to calculate some paper ballots.

When asked by CBS 6 political reporter Joe St George how an entire machine could be left out, Richmond Registrar Kirk Showalter said that workers do in fact get tired.

“Weariness on the election workers-they’ve been there since 4:30 in the morning,” Showalter said.

Showalter said that election officials actually knew of the error last week, but waited until Monday in order to let the process play out.

Showalter reiterated to the press that this is exactly why a canvass is conducted, so election night results are double and triple checked before they are certified.

The irony is that precinct 501 was actually requested for review by Republican lawyers.

“What happened in there was going to happen anyway,” Garren Shipley, Communications Director with the Republican Party of Virginia, said.


Read more: http://wtvr.com/2013/11/11/live-updates-richmond-votes-attorney-general-race/

[Thinkingabout]

1. I think the GOP will come up with a new scheme to stop the Democratic votes. I worked

a Texas precinct last week and if so we have long lines the process is slower but we only had one voter to come in and her name did not match on the last name but the precinct judge was able to determine her registration name and she had to fill out a form. We had the drivers license info and whether it matched.

I sure hope Herring comes out the winner in Virginia.

[Coyotl]

2. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014645290

[grantcart]

6. It's not a dupe because this is the local news report of the official meeting

after the meeting that confirms that the Richmond Electoral Board had confirmed an actual vote change with the actual new vote tally

Republican Senator Mark Obenshain led Democrat Senator Mark Herring by 17 votes on Sunday night. Following Monday’s meeting, Herring picked up 135 votes, according to The Democratic Party of Virginia.

[questionseverything]

12. from page 676 on

http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/webdocs/electionresultschangelogs/20131105.pdf

you can see the richmond changes

i kinda call bs on them waiting until the reps challenged these precincts if they knew they had a missing machine from their totals,as you can see from the log changes they were already counting provisionals

but i am glad it has been counted now

[Zorra]

3. Republicans will try to get away with cheating any way they can. If they get caught,

they can blame it on being "tired".

Oh, yeah...the dog ate my votes.

Republicans are foolish for requesting a review, because, since dishonesty is a primary characteristic of the republican species, there is always a high probability that some republican poll worker hid Dem votes somehow, and will get caught.

[ffr]

4. Good. NMR

No
More
Republis

[freshwest]

5. Oben-stain is a disgrace. No matter what happens, he'll keep stinking up VA.

[OldRedneck]

7. Perspective from one Virginia election official

I live in a rural Virginia County and I'm an election official.

"Election official" means I am one of the people working at the polling place . . . when you come in, I'm the person who checks your ID, or points you to the voting booth, or shows you where to deposit your ballot, or takes a ballot out to the car so your invalid mother can vote.

We all are volunteers. Our training consists of a two-hour session conducted by our county registrar about a week before the election. The county pays us $100 plus mileage.

We must be at the polling place at 5:00 AM and we cannot leave until after the votes are tabulated; ballots sealed in boxes; voting machines opened, memory cards removed, cards placed in sealed envelopes; all envelopes sealed and signed; voting machines re-sealed; seal numbers recorded; a complicated Statement of Results filled out by hand and signed; and on and on and on.

In my case, I'm at a small, rural polling place with about 1,800 registered voters in our district. In the 5 November election, 985 votes were cast at our precinct; we closed the polls at 7:00 PM but we did not leave until 9:30 PM . . . that sounds like a 16-1/2 hour day, from 5:00 AM until 9:30 PM, but it's much more than that.

Figure that, in order to get to the polls at 5:00 AM, I got up at 3:30, cooked and ate breakfast, showered, dressed, and drove 10 miles. I carried with me a cooler containing my lunch. After the polls closed and we completed all the poll-closing work, I helped the chief at our polling place load all the paperwork, voting machines, signs, etc., etc., into his SUV. We drove to the courthouse, hauled all the stuff from his car into the registrar's office, went through a checklist, and turned in everything. I got home at 10:30 PM, was in bed at 11:00 PM - - - my day, then, was 3:30 AM - 11:00 PM . . . you do the math. Five people worked at my polling place -- I'm 69, the chief is 75, and the youngest is 65 - - - by the time the polls close at 7:00 PM, all us old folks are dragging ass and we still have 2 hours or more to go. I suspect the same is the case at the Richmond polls.

I fully understand how tired poll workers at the Richmond poll could overlook one machine. While we dealt only with 985 voters, I suspect they had 3 -4 times that many, or more; after all, they're in Richmond (population over 200,000), we are in a rural county, total population under 12,000

And . . . the official results are tabulated at the courthouse by our three-person county election board, all three of whom are age 65 - 70. Their day started the same as mine, around 3:30 AM . . . and they don't get out of the courthouse until after midnight.

Hell of a way to run an election.

[bobGandolf]

8. Wow, that's a hell of a day!

My respect, and thanks, goes out to you.

[Beacool]

9. That IS a long day.

I'm much younger than these folks and I would probably be dozing off on top of the ballots before the night was over.

[grantcart]

10. Thanks for doing this. Can you imagine the poor guys in Richmond who then have to come back and

re tally with 4 cameras and a bunch of attorneys looking at every move.

I am sure that the people who missed the machine felt terrible about it.

[gopiscrap]

11. I did this once when I was 31 years old to see how the process worked

and I'll tell you even as a young person I was drained at the rend of my day. I got up at 415 and got home at 950

[questionseverything]

13. you bring up good points

the election day work should be done in shifts,precincts should be smaller and everything should be transparent