RECOUNT UPDATE
Dec 6 – The 2013 Cambridge City Council Election Recount finished its fifth day today. The distribution and counting of ballots according to #1 Votes was completed early in the day and the results announced (see below). The rest of the day was dedicated to matching Leland Cheung’s #1 paper ballots with replica ballots created from the official electronic record of his #1 votes. This is necessary prior to any drawing and distribution of surplus ballots to other candidates (2nd Count) because of the legal requirement that ballot transfers must follow the same course as in the official results unless the discovery of an error warrants otherwise.
The matching of ballots and ballot records will continue on Saturday and, hopefully, the 2nd Count will then be carried out. Once that is complete, most of the uncertainty about the eventual election outcome will be removed since subsequent transfer rounds as candidates are defeated should proceed more or less as they did in the Official Count. The matching of paper ballots and ballot records will occur in later rounds whenever ballot order is relevant. – Robert Winters
Revised Ward & Precinct Totals for City Council Election (Recount)
Differences between Official Results (Nov 15) and Recount
panoramic photo by Tom Stohlman
Thank you once again, Robert for providing information and analysis in a steady stream…
I don’t think the comment that five new ballots were found is the complete picture. If you focus on the net effect on each ward, a different picture emerges.
ward 1-2 has one less ballot
ward 3-1 has six additional ballots
ward 3-3 has one additional ballot
ward 4-1 has one less
ward 6-2 has one less
ward 7-1 has one additional
ward 9-1 has one additional
ward 9-3 has one additional
ward 10-1 has one less
ward 11-2 has one less
It appears to me that the net is five but there are 10 additional and five missing ballots. Do you think there is a logical explanation?
I don’t think any of the newly identified ballots were invalid ones. There were differences between the machine interpretation of voter intent and human interpretation.
Comment by Minka — December 8, 2013 @ 11:47 pm
I don’t believe any of these minor discrepancies are unusual for a recount, but understanding why there are differences is a useful byproduct of a recount. Our scanners are now perhaps 17 years old and it’s certainly possible that some may be developing geriatric problems. I think we’ll have to give a good look at what happened in 3-1 where apparently 6 ballots were not initially recorded. Two possible explanations that I heard were that the machine may have failed to record them (and that certainly has to be corrected before that machine ever sees service again) or that an election worker improperly put 6 ballots in an envelope for later scanning when there was some kind of jam with the machine.
We make lemonade from lemons. Nobody loves recounts, but they do serve as a good quality control check.
Comment by Robert Winters — December 9, 2013 @ 9:11 am