BBV - Hillborough Cty, FL. Absentee Question - Help

[harmonyguy]

I'm in the process of analysing the results from the Hillsborough primary and need help on a question.

Their 'final' results spreadsheet (linked below) shows two separate numbers for Absentee Ballots for each race. One appears to be in with the precinct totals and the other appears to be added on top of those, along with the early voting totals. (My head is swimming with numbers just now.) If I check the addition of the numbers, it almost looks like the Absentee line is NOT included in the Precinct Totals line, and that the later line 'Absentee Totals' also includes the 'Early Votes' which are listed below them. (Now, you understand my confusion!)

I'd be grateful for a second set of eyes to take a look at this sheet and see if it makes any sense at all.
http://www.votehillsborough.org/Files/August_2004_Primary.xls
Thanks
HG
(On edit - link fixed)

[Boredtodeath]

1. Getting an error on your link, but

Early Votes most likely equal the week before the election early voting on Touchscreen machines. They are set up as a separate precinct.

Absentee Votes is actually paper (scanned) absentee ballots mailed into the elections office and a separate precinct as well.

In DRE voting you may also see Times Counted/Ballots Cast. One is the number of times a voter access card is read by the Touchscreen, the other being how many times the "Cast Ballot" button was touched.

[madfloridian]

2. Hey, go to Rob MacKenna's site and email him.

www.blogforamerica.com

Look at the Dean Dozen button, and then find his personal website from there. I can't remember it offhand.

He is right on top of this thing. He was written up in several articles about this. He is running against Buddy Johnson for the elections supervisor office.

BTW, your link does not work.

Just contact Rob. We gotta get Buddy out of there.

[Boredtodeath]

3. OK, got the link

The figures actually DO match.....the placement is bad, but the numbers add up

Add Absentee + Early Voting and you'll see the numbers equal Total Absentee. They are on the spreadsheet out of order, but the totals are correct. It appears the Provisional Ballots have not been added in yet, but that's not uncommon - it sometimes takes several days to research provisional ballots.

I do find the provisional ballot number very low, though. It looks like you have more than 300 precincts, but only 15 provisional ballots???? That probably means a lot of people left the polling place without being given a chance to vote because they weren't offered a provisional ballot.

[harmonyguy]

4. Thanks - I though I was going nuts

You're right - the provisional figures are pretty low.
The highest Provisional count that I could find was the State Attorney race with 38 provisionals out of a total of 125000 cast.

There are spome real oddities with this county. In five different races, the ballots counted equaled or exceeded the total number of ballots cast as resported on their website. This was written up only referencing the State Attorney's race, and was explained as being a typo, however the typo must have been made by a programmer because the same logic error was made in earlier web reports. I haven't yet done the comparison with the state-posted results but the County results as of 11:10pm show a Turnout of 55948, with the State Attorney, Proiperty Appraiser, Judge Group 11, and School Board District 7 races all exceeding the turnout figure. The really wacky one is Circuit Court Judge Group 17 which appears to have exactly mirrored the turnout figure throughout the night.

I'll keep working on this and see how the state figures compare.

HG

[madfloridian]

6. More

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/23/Hillsborough/Elections_site_posts_.shtml

TAMPA - For three weeks since the Aug. 31 primary, the Web site of Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson included this obvious contradiction: a total of 118,699 people turned out to vote countywide, while 125,891 voted in the race for state attorney.

That's 7,192 more votes than voters.

Did the county's new-fangled touch screen voting machines go haywire and tabulate extra votes? Was there a ballot-stuffing scandal in the race for county prosecutor?

No, it was something even more predictable in the recent history of vote tabulation in Hillsborough County. It was human error, Johnson said Wednesday...."

SNIP..."In the Nov. 2 general election, he faces Democratic newcomer Rob MacKenna, 33, a computer programmer for Eckerd Corp. and Florida organizer of the Howard Dean presidential bid.

"It's hardly a surprise to hear that Buddy Johnson's office has made another mistake," MacKenna said Wednesday in response to a question about Johnson's Web site. "It may be that the real human error was made when the governor appointed Johnson supervisor of elections."

[Boredtodeath]

8. Can't be a typo

Those results are automatically generated by the tabulating software - no one is typing them.

[madfloridian]

5. Here are two articles about the missing votes, and the overcounts.

There is another article I will find about some 7000 votes too many counted. Same Buddy.

Oh, my, this guy Rob MacKenna sounds just like Howard Dean.

http://www.tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGBVTP089ZD.html
TAMPA -" Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson has maintained that vote-counting delays during the Aug. 31 primary were unfortunate but that results were accurate.
Not quite. It turns out 245 votes weren't counted from one of three touch-screen machines set up for early voting at Westgate Regional Library."

SNIP..."The sharpest criticism of the Republican Johnson came from the Democrat seeking his job, Rob MacKenna, who noted the found votes were announced 17 days after the primary.

``Buddy's excuse was he'd rather have it accurately rather than quickly. Well, we didn't get either,'' MacKenna said. ``In the real world, this is stuff you get fired over.''

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/18/Hillsborough/245_Hillsborough_prim.shtml
TAMPA -" Nearly 250 votes cast at a Hillsborough County early voting site before the Aug. 31 primary were never counted, a mistake that was discovered Friday, 17 days after the election.

The votes went untabulated, said Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson, because a veteran elections worker mistakenly left a touch screen voting machine in the "test" mode, causing its votes to be recorded but preventing them from being added to the final election results."

SNIP..."This is not the first problem with the primary election for Johnson, a restaurateur and former state legislator appointed to the elections job last year. After the polls closed Aug. 31, Johnson's computer servers mysteriously slowed to a snail's pace, and the vote was not totally counted until 5:10 a.m. the day after the election.

After a diagnosis by Sequoia Voting Systems, the vendor that sold Hillsborough its $12-million package of touch screen voting machines, Johnson announced that a computer indexing system had malfunctioned, causing the server to repeatedly search through its entire data base before recording any single vote......"

SNIP.."The revelation of the latest problem, however, provided ammunition for Rob MacKenna, an Eckerd Corp. computer programmer who won the Democratic primary for elections supervisor and now faces Johnson, a Republican, on Nov. 2 in the race for the $119,584-a-year job.

"In a statement released Friday night, MacKenna said Johnson should be held accountable for the error. "Of all the duties of the Supervisor of Elections, certifying an election without counting every vote is among the worst possible mistakes," he said...."

[Bimini_Twisted]

7. Home, sweet home.

[RedEagle]

9. Back up

For more pairs of eyes to look.

Kick!

[Bamboo]

10. Catastrophic Success

Request an absentee ballot http://www.votehillsborough.org/content.aspx?id=86 If you take it in person it goes into a padlocked box,do not just hand it to someone.Another benefit is chance to study amendments on ballot.They are building a toll road in Tampa which is sinking in various spots and the completion date is extended whenever they find a new rough patch.I supersized my vote this year with contributions,I like those W'04 stickers because it gets me to contribute $50 when I see one,like a drinking game.

[harmonyguy]

11. Not exactly sure how this fits, but...

thanks for the kick.
HG