On November 7, 2006, eighteen citizens conducted Ohio's fourth Parallel Election (PE) at the Whetstone Recreation Center polling station, which hosts four precincts: Columbus 19C, 19D, 20A and 20D, located at 3923 N. High Street, in Columbus.
At the close of polls, PE ballots were transferred to a warehouse where five teams of nine counters hand-counted the 626 paper ballots, preparing an Audit Report for each precinct. Four teams counted the four precincts, and an additional team was created to count PE ballots from "unknown precincts," where voters misreported or failed to report their precinct number.
Election results on the attached spreadsheet were compiled from three sources: PE Audit Reports, Precinct-posted thermal roll results, and Franklin County Board of Elections web-posted results, accessed on November 9, 2006.
Key results are reproduced below. Full results at http://tinyurl.com/yhj8cf. Although we drew a smaller turnout than prior PEs, this was the largest polling station attempted, and new ideas were tested. Further details, analysis and conclusions will be included in the Final Report.
Key Results:
Total Registered Voters per BOE......... 3,426 Total Parallel Voters................... 626 Total Official Voters per Precinct Post. 1,826 Total Official Voters per BOE........... 1,756 PE% of Precinct Turnout................. 35%
Total Provisional Voters reported to PE.. 71 Total Provisional Voters reported by BOE. 72 PE% of official provisional voters....... 99%
This PE monitored the following races and issues:
Governor US Rep 15th District US Senate Secretary of State Ohio Supreme Court (O'Donnell vs. O'Neill) Issue 2 – Minimum Wage Issue 3 – Gambling Issue 4 – Limited Smoking in Ohio Issue 5 – Smoke-free Ohio
Donations provided to the Free Press (Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism) enabled me to prepare for and coordinate this PE effort. Marj Creech (co-coordinator), Len Samuelson, Teresa Blakely, and Mel and Lisa Vallieri provided invaluable support and in-kind donations. Much gratitude to all for this much-needed help, including twelve more volunteers, who all made this Parallel Election possible.
It was very exciting to participate in Election Observance during the Parallel Election. All over the country, we observed, videoed, photographed, polled, and collected public records this election season, mostly volunteer and most with good cheer.
The growing number of the civically engaged bodes well for our democracy.
Shenanigans did occur, so our continued efforts are needed.
· Someone discovered that the Ohio Secretary of State website is transferred to another IP address in Tennessee for at least 24 hours, beginning Election Day eve. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/7/144314/082
· Voters reported to PE workers about screen freezes and being forced to vote provisionally.
In 2004, Rady Ananda began contributing to the Web, as part of the growing community of citizen journalists. Focusing mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexuality and racial equality, and environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.
All material offered here is the property of Rady Ananda, copyright 2006, 2007, 2008. Permission is granted to repost, with proper attribution including the original link.
