By Ward Peck

Editor

    An apparent miscommunication among election
officials in Cape Elizabeth led to the over counting of an estimated
240 ballots on Election Day.

    According to Town Clerk April Cohen-Tracy,
volunteers charged with reviewing ballots flagged by the optical
scanning machines were supposed to only count the ballot line that
caused the rejection. Instead the volunteers recounted the entire
ballot, causing an unknown number of votes to be counted twice.
Cohen-Tracy said the optical scanning machines sort the ballots into
one of two piles. Clean ballots, in which voter intent is clearly
marked and do not contain any write in candidates are sorted into one
pile. Ballots that the scanner could not determine voter intent or
contain a write in candidate are placed in another pile, but the
machine still counts the ballot lines it can read. The separated
ballots are then reviewed by representatives of the two major political
party to count the unread or “red lined” votes.

    Cohen-Tracy said she is not sure how the
communication breakdown occurred. She said she does not know if the
workers misinterpreted her instructions or if she even reviewed the
proper procedure with the workers at all.

    Cohen-Tracy said the over vote of 240 ballots was
determined by counting the number of ballots containing write-in
candidates.

    She said the problem was discovered when someone
reviewing the results of the TABOR referendum question noticed the
total number of votes exceeded the total number of ballots. According
to official results, TABOR received 2,167 votes for, 3,173 votes
against and 100 voters did not vote on the question, totaling 5,440
votes, but only 5,250 ballots with that question were cast, a
difference of 190 ballots.

    “A further review of the tape tally indicates that
31 blank voted ballots were automatically sent to a separate section of
the ballot box by the Accuvote tabulating machine for hand tally,”
Cohen-Tracy wrote in a press release.

    According to Cohen Tracy, the vote tallies with the
over vote, which were reported in last week’s Sentry will stand as the
official count. She said it is likely the true vote will never be known
in the majority of races.

    “It is not possible for the town to undertake a
recount on its own as the ballots are sealed pursuant to Maine law. A
candidate for federal, state or county office could request a recount
to the Secretary of State, Cohen Tracy wrote.

    Cohen-Tracy also states in the release that,
“despite the apparent discrepancy with the ballots with write in
candidates, no race would have had its outcome overturned.”

In the Maine House of Representatives District 121 race between Cynthia
Dill and Jennifer Duddy, a total of 4,688 votes were counted, although
only 4618 ballots seem to have been cast, resulting in 70 extra votes.
Dill won the race by 176 votes. Even if all the over counted votes were
cast for Dill, her margin of victory exceeded the potential over vote.

    Based upon the irregularities, Duddy said she has filed a request for a recount.

    Cohen-Tracy said the issue with over-voting was
separate from a voting machine malfunction. Sometime during the
afternoon on Election Day, election workers realized one machine was
not sorting redlined ballots into a separate pile. Cohen-Tracy decided
to resubmit the ballots into a different machine. That problem caused
results to be delayed by about an hour.