Internet Vote Reporting Confusion
It appears that McHenry County was not the only place where people depending on internet results after all the precincts were reported in where confusion occurred.
In St. Clair County, according to Respublica, the same thing happened with the Fairview Heights mayor’s race.
The confusion, Respublica writes,
stemmed from overlooking the new Illinois election law. This law, which went into effect in July, mandates that absentee and early voting ballots not be counted until after the polls closed.In McHenry County, results in the Huntley School Board race were posted. All precincts in.
The only results available on election night, at least early enough in the evening for newspaper/media deadlines, were those coming from voters who voted in person on Tuesday in their precincts.
St. Clair County chose to report the in person votes separate from the absentee and early voting which gave the impression that the election results were complete. This confused some when they read reports from the county which said, 29 of 29 precincts reporting, 100 percent. Give or take some precincts.
Madison County, on the other hand, did not report results until those ballots were included.
Then, later in the night the numbers changed.
No explanation was posted on the web site, although the Clerk’s Office did explain to me what happened the next day when I figured out the people whom I thought had won probably did not.
Seems to me that the electronic posting should have columns listing how many votes in person, absentee and early and, then, the total so far.Or follow Madison County’s example and wait until all the votes are counted.
Of course, that would still exclude the absentees that have not arrived by election day and are give 14 days to show up.
It’s really strange when the results change without an explanation.
Can you imagine the yo-yo of emotions when a candidate goes from victor to “also ran” in a matter of hours?
This is just one of the articles on McHenry County Blog this weekend, although goodness why you would be inside during daylight hours with the weather as good as it is.
2 comments:
The law that prohibits election authorities from counting ballots befor 7pm isn't new -- it's always been the law. The issue is there are now so many different ways to vote, so the end of night results reflect only those people who voted in person. The only major change is that in the past all absentee ballots were forwarded to the polls and included in the count, however now all absentee,grace period, and early voting ballots are counted centrally and later applied to each precinct total.
In the end, we end up with what is probably the most accurate count we'd ever get, but it takes just a little longer for the results. And it's worth mentioning that the "results" you see on election night are never the real results - they're subject to change for 14 days not final until certified.
DuPage had problems too.
Post a Comment