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Uncounted votes likely won’t change Falls issue

WARREN — The Trumbull County Board of Elections on Monday will certify the results of the Nov. 8 election, but with the number of outstanding absentee and provisional ballots included in the count — after several weren’t returned and some disqualified — the only outcome that could possibly change is to a Newton Falls charter amendment.

Even that amendment’s Election Day outcome, which had it winning by 10 votes, is highly unlikely to be impacted, board Director Stephanie Penrose said.

That charter amendment passed on election night 663 to 653. There are 27 outstanding absentee and provisional ballots in the village that haven’t yet been included in the official count. They will be added in the final tally when the board meets Monday to certify the results, Penrose said.

The outstanding absentee and provisional ballots usually break very similar to the Election Day results, Penrose said.

It would take a 10-vote change against the issue among the 27 uncounted ballots for the results to change, which would be very surprising, Penrose said.

Also, Penrose said: “That’s assuming everyone voted on that charter amendment. The odds of all 27 people voting on that amendment are pretty slim.”

Newton Falls had seven charter amendments on the ballot with four passing. The vote totals ranged from 1,309 to 1,352.

The charter amendment that passed by 10 votes had 1,316 total ballots cast.

That proposal would make changes to recall election procedures by requiring a 90-day time limit for getting the required number of signatures on a petition from the original filing date and having the recall placed on the soonest general or primary election for which the recall can be scheduled.

If the final results are within 0.5 of a percent, there is an automatic recount.

That would require board of elections employees to count by hand the ballots of one of the village’s four precincts and compare that outcome to those counted on the optical scanners, Penrose said. If the totals are the same, the results are certified. If not, all of the ballots have to be counted by hand.

The unofficial count has the margin of victory at 0.76 of a percent, which is outside the margin of error.

All outstanding absentee ballots had to be sent by mail to the board by last Friday and had to have a postmark of no later than Nov. 7, the day before Election Day. These were ballots requested by voters by mail that didn’t arrive at boards of elections until after Election Day.

People vote with provisional ballots when their names or addresses don’t match their voter registration information with boards of elections as well as if voters don’t have identification, their names don’t appear on the official poll list, they already requested an absentee ballot or if signatures, in the opinion of precinct officers, do not match the signatures on registration forms, among other scenarios.

Of the 1,475 outstanding absentee ballots in the county, only 178 will be included in the official count, Penrose said.

An overwhelming majority of them never sent the ballots back to the board, she said.

There were also 52 rejected by the board: 38 had a postmark after Nov. 7, 13 of them didn’t have a voter identification on them — such as a Social Security number or driver’s license number — and one envelope was returned with no ballot, Penrose said.

There were 1,259 provisional ballots submitted in the county with 103 of them disqualified by the board of elections at a Friday meeting.

Of those 103 disqualified: 58 came from people not registered to vote in Ohio, 34 voted in the wrong precinct and wrong voting location, two live in another county or state, two didn’t sign their ballot envelopes, one failed to produce proper ID and six already voted, Penrose said.

Of the six who tried to vote a second time, four had already cast ballots at the board’s early voting center and two voted by mail, Penrose said.

The board is notifying those six of what they did “in case they’re confused,” Penrose said. “I keep a list of those who’ve attempted to vote twice before and if someone keeps doing it, we may take action against them,” which would be referring them to the county prosecutor’s office for an election fraud investigation.

There are no other races in the county that could be impacted by the inclusion of the additional votes to the official count, Penrose said.

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