Election process in action... striving to be correct
By Debbie Lowe

Election board members strive for excellence County election board members Gil Smith and Sam Deiwert read ballot results from Burlington Township advisory board race. Board member Laura Sterrett tallied the results, which were checked by another staff member from the clerk's office. Comet photo by Debbie Lowe

Two years ago in the county council race, the Carroll County Election Board discovered some ballots in township races without a full slate were not counted correctly by voting machines. The scanner used to read ballot results did not accurately tabulate all ballots voting straight tickets. County election officials responded by hand-counting those races.

Board members understood that by using the same machines in the recent Nov. 7 general election they would be faced with a similar problem. They reacted by not only hand-counting ballots in township advisory board races, but anticipated a re-count in precincts where hand-count and machine tallies showed significant differences.

According to county clerk and election board member Laura Sterrett, all election results had to be certified by Nov. 20 at noon. Therefore board members, along with party chairmen and other interested residents, met the morning of Nov. 17 to do the tedious task of re-counting ballots from four precincts in Deer Creek and Burlington townships.

"We want to be accurate," Sterrett said. "We aren't going to have this problem next year, but we have to contend with it right now, for this past election."

Results of the recount did change two outcomes in township advisory board races.

Election results were certified by the county election board Monday morning. Winners in the Deer Creek race were Sherry Mears with 834 votes, Mary Clifford with 655 and Melissa Darling with 644 votes. Before the recount James M. Shaffer was declared a winner.

Winners in the Burlington Township board race were Linda Heinzelman with 398 votes, Jim Walker with 387 and John Bogue with 386 votes. Before the recount, Linda Huffer was tied with Jim Walker.