Well this is completely unsurprising:
The tight race between Democrat Danny O’Connor and Republican Troy Balderson just got tighter.
Election officials in Franklin County found 588 previously uncounted votes in a Columbus suburb. The result: O’Connor had a net gain of 190 votes, bringing the race’s margin down to 1,564.
Go here to read the rest. One thing you can always count upon in close elections is that election officials in Democrat areas will find uncounted votes that favors the Democrat candidate. Funny how that works.
This is my stomping ground. Live here now and spent much of my life here. From when a youthful John Kasich spoke to our high school when he was a state pol, to his being elected to the House, to Tiberi following him – here’s the scoop. We’re Ohio. We’re as middle of the road as you get. Our district (12th) voted Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. The press (and Democrats) are making a big deal about this being so close. They are comparing it to Tiberi’s double digit victories. True, we are a Red leaning area in the state, but it’s usually close for non-incumbents because we are so middle of the road. When Kasich took the seat back in the 80s, he squeaked by at around 50%. Once there, he enjoyed significant victories. Same with Tiberi. When he took Kasich’s seat in 2000, he only got around 52% of the vote. That was with Kasich – who at the time was wildly popular and a nationally recognized figure – openly campaigning for him and supporting him. Afterwards Tiberi enjoyed substantial victories. Lesson: If you are new and not an incumbent, you’re going to win by a thread. Once in, you can count on loyalty from the district unless you do something stupid. That this will be close between two non-incumbents is just par for the course. Those commenting otherwise either don’t know the district, or they do and are hoping nobody else does. Just an observation from a non-NYC press perspective.
Thanks Dave for giving us an on the scene perspective. Ohio has always been a closely contested state politically since before the Civil War, and two non-incumbents running in a Congressional race in a special election can not infrequently produce surprising results unless the area is very deep Blue or very deep Red.
Other than just that you are a political partisan, do you have an iota of evidence that something inappropriate happened? The Chairman of the Board of Elections, Douglas J Preisse, also serves as Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee.
Common sense, history and the knowledge that Franklin County is a Democrat stronghold. Either Democrat election officials are amazingly incompetent judging from how frequently missed ballots are found in close elections, or they hold back votes to see how many they will need to “discover” in close races. There is a reason why the Democrat party fights tooth and nail against voter id laws, and that reason is their traditional advantage from the margin of fraud.
Other than just that you are a political partisan, do you have an iota of evidence that something inappropriate happened? The Chairman of the Board of Elections, Douglas J Preisse, also serves as Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee.
Having at one time been enmeshed in the electoral process in my home county, my wager would be that inventory control on postal ballots received is weak or non-existent and Democratic employees are able to dump sacks of hoarded ballots into the tabulation stream, which are then ‘found’ later. Academic studies of close elections meeting certain criteria have been done which indicate that Democratic candidates win about 3/4 of such contests. Ratios of 3:1 are well in excess of chance. And it’s not just minor races. It’s a reasonable inference that a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota and the Governorship of Washington have been stolen in the last 15 years or so. N.B., Washington and Minnesota have in the past had reputations for comparatively clean politics.
You can blame the League of Women Voters and sundry for enabling this. One conduit has been the promotion of convenience balloting. It’s a lot easier to steal votes through postal balloting than it is through in-person balloting. Another conduit has been the decline in the practice of purging. When I was involved in local politics 30 years ago, boards of elections kept assiduous track of local obituaries and struck from the roll anyone who’d been sent mail from the board that someone had attempted to forward.
The thing is, you have high-turnover neighborhoods in any city. These tend to be populated with the young and unmarried. Canvassers identify people who are on the rolls who aren’t actually living there. There’s your pool of fraudulent votes, provided identification requirements for postal ballots aren’t too onerous.
We can be doing a great deal to improve ballot security. There’s a reason Democratic politicians go on a slander and libel fest when anyone suggests even mild efforts toward this end.
“… and struck from the roll anyone who’d been sent mail from the board that someone had attempted to forward as well as anyone who hadn’t voted in the last four years”
I also live in Ohio. We have paper ballots. After filling out the ballot, each voter individually feeds their ballot into a reader and it is electronically counted. You don’t get the ballot back, it stays in the reader machine. There should not be any “found” votes. You should be able to feed the same ballots back in and get the same results.
Presumably, these were absentee ballots.
Absentee and Provisional ballots they’re saying. Apparently they just found more, and apparently it has shrunk Balderson’s lead.
Filled out by ACORN members, with scant doubt.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/how-long-will-you-tolerate-having-your-franchise-deprecated-and-nullified/
still ignoring this was all happening under Republican election board leadership.
The county is controlled by the Democrats Kurt.
The county is controlled by the Democrats Kurt.
President Trump. Vice-President Pence. Speaker Ryan. Leader McConnell. Governor Kasich. Ohio Senate Majority Leader Randy Gardner (R). Ohio House Speaker Ryan Smith (R). Franklin County Board of Elections Chairman Douglas J Preisse. (R).
WOW. I just gotta say, WOW!
Franklin County
373 S. High St.
Columbus, OH 43215
Telephone: (614) 862-3322
http://www.franklincountyohio.gov
County Seat: Columbus
Population: 1,163,414 Area: 542 Sq. Miles
County Officers
Position Name of Officer Salary Politics Term Expires
Commissioner Marilyn Brown $92,474.00 Democrat 12/31/2018
Commissioner John O’Grady $92,474.00 Democrat 01/01/2017
Commissioner Paula Brooks $92,474.00 Democrat 01/02/2017
Auditor Clarence E. Mingo II $93,985.00 Republican 03/10/2019
Prosecuting Attorney Ron O’Brien $121,323.00 Republican 01/01/2017
Clerk of Courts Maryellen O’Shaughnessy $75,860.00 Democrat 01/01/2017
Sheriff Zack Scott $91,775.00 Democrat 01/01/2017
Recorder Terry J. Brown $74,423.00 Democrat 01/01/2017
Engineer Dean C. Ringle $107,357.00 Republican 01/01/2017
Coroner Anahi M. Ortiz $121,323.00 Democrat 01/01/2017
Treasurer Edward Leonard $75,860.00 Democrat 09/03/2017
Yet who chairs the elections board who has oversight of the ballot counting? A Republican. In fact the GOP County Chairman.
I doubt seriously Kurt that he had any input into the precinct in question where the votes were found.
He is the immediate authority. You mentioned a list of people who have no role whatsoever in the matter.
Yes, to show that the County is controlled almost entirely by the Democrats. Those are the people on the ground level in this county, and it is interesting how overlooked votes tend to magically appear in tight elections in Democrat areas and always benefit the Democrat candidate.
Yet who chairs the elections board who has oversight of the ballot counting?
The board has 2 Democratic members and 2 Republican members, Kurt. The chariman’s position is a courtesy title. The Republican members can refuse to certify the ballots in question. Depending on the precise provisions of Ohio law, it goes to the courts. The judiciary in Washington state and Minnesota didn’t put a stop to fraud there, so I wouldn’t count on the courts.
Affidavit ballots should never be permitted. As for absentee ballots, they should be logged and placed in a lock-box under the supervision of an election commissioner from each side. That box should not be opened until the last mail delivery on election day. When it is opened, the board of elections staff counts every single ballot that evening and then locks the ballots away. Any arriving thereafter get mailed back with a note explaining it arrived too late to be validly tabulated.