BVBL has a post he called "the math error" although in fact he's not reporting a math error at all, but rather a likely cause for ALL the supposed "overvotes" -- that the front desk simply didn't do the counts by precinct correctly.
In fact, in the ONE instance reported, there were supposedly two delegates who weren't counted at ALL as being there, but were actually there and had valid badges for one of the overvoted precincts. If there were two, it's likely there were more than two.
In fact, given that the front desk rejected some people, and they had to go to the credentials committee and get hand-written badges, it's possible THOSE people weren't counted either.
It's also possible a couple people were allowed to vote in the Lake Ridge precinct when they weren't tagged for the precinct. However, I'm beginning to discount that. The Lucas monitor for that precinct is a long-time republican operative, and is hardly the kind of person you'd expect to make an error like that. And since she hasn't said anything about allowing people who weren't allowed to vote to vote, and since she had control of the ballots which were all numbered, it seems highly unlikely that a person with the wrong name tag voted.
It's too bad they don't collect the valid name tags at the end, so they could go through and count them to see how many were issued for each precinct. But remember, the Lucas election monitor had to put an ''X" on EACH AND EVERY voter in the Lake Ridge precinct. Does ANYBODY here think the Lucas election monitor would have put an "X" on a name tag that was NOT in that precinct? Why would the Lucas election monitor hand out ballots to three people who had the wrong name tags?
Since the only reason would be to cause overvotes and get the precinct thrown out so her candidate would win, and since nobody would accuse a Lucas campaign person of doing that with no evidence, I have to think that she marked 80 "X" marks on 80 valid Lake Ridge Precinct votes.
It will be interesting to hear what SHE thinks caused the overvotes in her precinct. I can't imagine she'll say she allowed invalid votes just for her candidate to win, nor can I imagine the RPV would throw an election to a candidate if the candidate's appointee was the reason for the error. Especially to throw out 77 good votes to win the election because of the error.
Anyway, there's a simpler solution since the election wasn't that close. Throw out 3 gill votes in the precinct and nothing changes. Since the precincts are all weighted, there's no point in throwing out the whole precinct, that would disenfranchise voters in a way contrary to the point of having weightings.
Fact is, if you think there could have been overvotes in one precinct, there could have been people voting wrong in EVERY precinct. But there's no indication of a single person being CAUGHT voting in the wrong precinct.
My guess is that this will unfortunately end up at the RPV. And my expectation is that, they being smart people, will do the math, realise that you could even throw 10 gill votes out of the "overvoted" precinct and he would STILL win the race, and properly reject the appeal.
That is, if we even know all the facts. My guess is there's a lot of things both sides have that are being held close. Heck, we are just bloggers. It's not our place to make these decisions, and we probably get in the way more than help.
2 comments:
"But there's no indication of a single person being CAUGHT voting in the wrong precinct."
That's not true Charles...there was at least one witness to precisely that. There is SO much evidence of improprieties that I'd be surprised if the entire convention is not thrown out by the RPV and certain people involved are not censured...and not all of the evidence is in. I understand that there is further investigation going on by people other than Julie to determine if non-citizens were allowed to "register" and vote as delegates. This is going way beyond just political scrutiny.
Perhaps you should start getting your "facts" straight and not parroting "the party line."
Sorry, AW, if you are talking about some commenter at BVBL, it doesn't exist (since he blocks my access).
There has been no report that a ballot was seen being placed in a ballot box by a person who did NOT have that ballot HANDED to them by an election volunteer after having their badge checked off.
There WERE examples of people who got in the wrong line, and were STOPPED from voting in the wrong precinct by the election monitors -- which IS their job, to look at the badge and kick out those who aren't in the right line.
It's too bad if the veteran Lucas Election Monitor for the Lake Ridge precinct failed to do that job, but I've looked around and seen NO indication that THAT person has claimed they gave a ballot to a person without a Lake Ridge precinct badge.
AW, you know who the person is who was the Lucas Election monitor for Lake Ridge precinct. Why don't you call her, and ask her if she handed a ballot, and put an "X", on a badge that was NOT for her precinct.
And don't bother faulting my for not reading commments at BVBL. Until he grows up and allows me to read his blog, I can't be held responsible for knowing what people post there.
Meanwhile, the credentials committee was chaired by TWO people picked by Lucas. And the election committee was chaired by a person picked by Lucas. If those two committees screwed up, that doesn't bode well for Lucas' judgment and ability to choose good people, does it.
But in fact the Credentials committee did a fine job. The RPV plan allows non-registered voters who have filed to vote, and since they were properly credentialed by the committee which had 4 people approved by Lucas, it doesn't really matter if they turn out NOT to be qualified to vote.
Of course, there are 'investigations'. The Democrats have taught us that sore losers can sometimes be winners by launching endless investigations.
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