MANSFIELD – On Monday the Richland County Board of Elections reviewed 648 ballots that have yet to be counted towards the March 15 election.
Those ballots have a chance of upsetting initial results in the GOP Richland County Commissioner’s race between Darrell Banks and incumbent Tim Wert. Unofficial results released on election night showed Banks ahead of Wert with 8,684 votes to 8,468. That difference of 216 votes separate the two candidates was slightly more than 1 percent, 42.80 to 41.74, respectively.
There were 567 provisional ballots reviewed and approved by the Board of Elections on Monday, as well as 81 late but eligible absentee ballots. A total of 644 provisional ballots were received on election night, however 77 ballots were rendered invalid by the board on Monday.
According to Richland County Director of Elections Paulette Hankins, the ballots left to be counted usually follow the trends from election night. However, there are occasional exceptions.
“It has made a difference in the outcome of a race between election night and the official count in the past,” Hankins said. “Usually it follows the same percentage of difference in the actual race on election night pretty closely. But it is possible.”
Party affiliation is a main factor in determining whether the provisional ballots will affect the commissioner race. However, Hankins explained the board does not know the parties of provisional voters until after the envelopes have been opened and counted. The official results of provisional, absentee and election day votes will be certified on Thursday, March 31.
Provisional ballots, Hankins explained, are used for people who have moved and did not notify the board of elections of the address change, for people who do not have property identification on election day, or for people who are not found in the database of registered voters but insist they are registered.
“Basically if anyone insists they should be allowed to vote, our poll workers are instructed to allow them to vote by provisional ballot, and we research it to see if their vote should actually count or not,” Hankins said.
There were 45 provisional ballots invalidated where voters were not registered in Richland or any other county in Ohio. Six ballots were invalidated due to no signature of the voter, 16 were invalidated due to voting at the wrong polling place and wrong precinct, and three were invalidated due to no name or address provided on the ballot.
Six additional provisional ballots were invalidated after voters realized they either voted nonpartisan or for the wrong party and were issued a provisional. Hankins said one voter in particular, who was a new citizen from Canada and was voting in his first American election, was extremely upset after casting the wrong ballot.
“He’s a brand-new citizen, the first time he’s allowed to vote, and he cast his ballot as nonpartisan when he’d asked for a Republican ballot,” Hankins said. “I explained that it was a mistake, but once he’d cast his ballot there was nothing we could do.”
The Board of Elections’ directive states that if a voter has cast another ballot, or requested and cast an absentee ballot, the board must reject the provisional ballot.
“There were five more like that at the polls that either got the wrong party ballot or a nonpartisan ballot and said they wanted a revote,” Hankins said. “I feel bad about it, but the directive clearly states that if they have cast a ballot otherwise that the provisional cannot be counted.”
Board President Michael Casto requested that the board contact the Ohio Secretary of State to address this issue in the future.
“Is there any way the directive could be asked in the future that we have the board authority to approve these kind of things?” he said. “That’s why we have provisional ballots, for extenuating circumstances.”
Three ballots required additional review from the board due to unusual circumstances, but were eventually approved. Two provisional ballot envelopes arrived empty after the ballots were accidentally placed in the ballot bag and counted with regular paper ballots on election night. Both ballots would have been valid and eventually counted. Another ballot was approved after a name was written in cursive and not printed on top of the ballot, but the handwriting was determined clear enough to be identified.
The board reviewed and eventually accepted 26 provisional ballots in which votes were cast in the correct vote center, but in the wrong precinct. Five will be counted, as there is no difference in candidates or issues, but 21 will be remade due to casting votes for congressional district or precinct committee candidates that were not applicable.
“A remake is us making another ballot and marking it as to what the voter should have been allowed to vote on according to their original markings on their ballot,” Hankins said. “You omit the races for which they should not have been allowed to vote. This way the ballots can be counted properly through the machine.”
The board also validated 81 late but eligible absentee ballots as they were received within 10 days after the election and postmarked on or before March 14. However, there were 17 absentee ballots that were received late and were not mailed by the deadline of March 14, and therefore were deemed ineligible.
