Thursday, November 06, 2008

No Reporting Error in Monmouth Freeholder Race

According to Monmouth County Clerk Claire French, there is no reporting error in the Freeholder race results. French and sources in the Asbury Park Press confirmed that there was confusion over the location of absentee ballot results in the data base that the clerk's office provided to the Press on election night which made it appear as though 8000 votes might be missing.

Democrat Amy Mallet currently leads Republican John Curley by 18 votes, with approximately 3200 provisional ballots to be validated and counted.

French told MoreMonmouthMusing that the Superintendent of Elections office is "working around the clock" to validate the provisional ballots. Attorneys from both the Democratic and Republican parties are observing the the validation process, as is the state Attorney General's office. State Troopers are protecting the custody of the ballots. The ballots are expected to be validated by November 17th.

Once the validation process is completed, the valid ballots will be transported down the hall to the Board of Elections office where they will be scanned and counted electronically. The machine that reads and counts the ballots does so at a rate of 120 ballots an hour. French expects the valid provisional ballots to be counted within a day of the Board of Elections receiving them from the Superintendent of Elections.

The deadline for filing for a recount is 10 business days from Election Day, which is November 19. French believes an extension would be granted if the count of the provisionals were disputed.

3 comments:

MiddletownMike said...

It's a shame the APP is so biased that it would float a story like this anyway with out double checking the facts first.

I am sure there will be a recount anyway, no matter what the outcome.

Art Gallagher said...

Who said the APP floated the story?

Anonymous said...

The APP is biased? as opposed to unbiased like Courier?