Mining Journal Video: Cathy Church asks for hand recount of votes in Independent race for prosecutor

Once again, the Diebold Optical Scan Voting System is in question for not counting all ballots.

(Marquette, MI) - Cathy Church, Independent Candidate for Marquette County Prosecuting Attorney, filed a Petition on Wednesday November 12, 2008 for a Full Recount of the ballots cast in the General Election on November 4, 2008 and posted a $400.00 deposit with the Marquette County Clerk.

The decision to petition for a recount was made after reviewing the total vote counts for Marquette County precincts, learning about voting irregularities within Marquette County during the general election and investigating the performance history of similar optical scanners used by various jurisdictions during recent elections.

Some of the information considered in reaching this decision included, but was not limited to:

Two absentee voters’ selections for a write-in candidate were not posted in the precinct’s final tally. (The write in candidate received 0 votes despite two voters casting their vote for the candidate.) Many voters had difficulty getting the optical scanners to accept their ballots and had to load and reload the ballots more than once before the scanner accepted them.

Different Marquette County precincts provided different marking instruments for the ballots ranging from pencils, ink pens and felt tip pens. When one voter attempted to mark his/her absentee ballot with an ink pen at one precinct, he/she was told to use a felt tip pen because the optical scanner in use might not read ink from a regular pen.

If a voter checked their ballot with a check mark or X, the optical scanner might not register these legitimate votes because of limitations on the scanners reading abilities.

In Ohio’s primary election this spring, the same scanners as used in Marquette County, malfunctioned in 11 out of the 40 Ohio Counties where they were in service, resulting in dropped votes. This situation prompted the scanner manufacturer to issue a nationwide customer alert in August 2008. Approximately 1,750 jurisdictions used the flawed system.

In Barry County, Michigan, a glitch in a computer program was believed to be the cause of a problem with the voting machines the first time they were used in 2006. All of the ballots had to be counted by hand after county officials noticed the optical scan machines scrambled the results. This glitch affected 15 of the 16 Barry County townships, including the city of Hastings and resulted in 1500 dropped votes.

Cathy Church stressed she has the utmost confidence in all the precincts, election officials and poll workers who performed their duties diligently and conscientiously during the election.

This recount request is based on the limitations of the technology of the optical scanners, NOT the election officials or poll workers’ work product or ethic.

The recount is also requested because to Cathy’s knowledge, a county-wide recount has not been done since these scanners came into service in every precinct in the county.

Cathy believes that the only way to measure the performance of the optical scanners is by a hand count of the ballots. As a candidate in the last election, Cathy is one of the few people permitted by law to petition for a recount.

Given all of this information, Cathy felt it prudent to petition for a recount to assure that all individuals who voted in the past election, and those who will vote in future elections in Marquette County, had and will have their votes accurately counted. A recount is the only method available to Cathy that will check the accuracy of the scanners and their technology.