Officials: Computer error causes election reporting issues in Clark County – WHAS11.com
JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — Officials say during the routine ballot canvassing process, they were notified that approximately 1,700 absentee ballots from Clark County were not included in the unofficial vote totals released to the public Tuesday night.
The race most likely to be affected is the Indiana House District 71 race, where Republican Scott Hawkins has a 35 vote lead over Democrat Rita Fleming.
County Clerk Susan Popp says the issue was caused by data not transferring from a voting machine to the election totals. She was clear that no ballots were “found” as previously reported.
Popp said all seven of the county’s voting machines that counted absentee ballots were working perfectly, the issue came when staff took out the memory cards. One of the cards didn’t transfer to the computer system, she said.
“I think all votes should be counted, and they will in this race, obviously,” Clark County Chairman of the Republican Party, Sheriff Jamey Noel, said. “The result may not change, but if it does, we’ll accept that new result.”
The county’s Election Board held an emergency meeting once the issue was noted, officials added, with representatives of both parties present for the discussion.
Chair of the county’s Democratic Party, Chris Coyle said both parties wanted to look at all of the memory cards and retabulate the totals.
“According to the Indiana Election Division of the Secretary of the State’s Office, this would have been a proper action,” he said.
However during the meeting, officials realized they weren’t following open meetings law and need to provide public notice for a meeting Friday morning, Popp told WHAS11.
The Clark County Election Board plans to regroup on Friday, Nov. 11 at 10:00 a.m. to inform the public and media of what happened.
From there, there will be new vote totals and then if either party wants to appeal the results, Popp said, they can.
Officials say all legally cast ballots will be accurately counted.
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