Revised election results posted
A error lead to the overstatement of vote totals on election night Tuesday. Here are the revised results for two of the more contested races.
For Barton County sheriff, it was announced Tuesday that Brian J. Bellendir, Great Bend, (winner of the Republican primary) received 8,656 votes, when in fact, he received 7,298. His challenger was fellow Republican Greg Armstrong, Great Bend, who is the incumbent and was running a write-in campaign.
The initial totals indicated there were 2,586 write-in ballots cast, but, the total should have been 2,253. Zimmerman’s office didn’t break them down as to individual candidates, so there may have been other names written in besides Armstrong’s.
In the House race, Republican John Edmonds, Great Bend, was first awarded 6,528, but that is now 5,512. Republican Frank McKinney, Great Bend, was running as a write-in and there were 132 write-in votes. That number now stands at 110. The Democrat in the contest, Steve Muehleisen, Great Bend, was first reported to have gotten 2,505 votes. That was reduced to 2,032.
All of the 112th falls within Barton County.
Updated unofficial vote totals are now available at www.bartoncounty.org/newnews.htm.
The unofficial general election totals were posted by Barton County election officials at 9:24 p.m. However, in the process of double checking the results, Election Officer Donna Zimmerman discovered a tabulation error which resulted in an overstatement of the number of votes cast.
On election night, it was reported that of the 17,229 registered voters in Barton County, 12,143 voted, or 70.48 percent. Instead, it should have been 10,340, or 60.02 percent.
“The error does not impact the results of any race, but does impact the margins of victory,” she said. The overstatement impacted only the advance votes that were cast electronically.
There were write-in races for the Sheriff’s position and the 112th Representative District that generated significant interest, Zimmerman said. “Because of the demand for results, I chose to expedite the process of providing write-in totals. In retrospect, I should have maintained regular tabulation procedures.
“I was simply attempting to provide write-in results in a more expedient manner which unfortunately resulted in duplication. This very unfortunate situation will not occur again.”
Normal election night tabulation procedures access election results using ballot activators, Zimmerman explained. However, these do not include write-in votes. Compact flash cards are the only media that contain write-in results.
As a result, compact flash cards were brought to the courthouse on election night for tabulation. Typically 87 compact flash cards are uploaded as one group the day after the election.
But, in order to provide results on election night, the compact flash cards were uploaded for the advanced/early voting. Election day flash cards were then uploaded. This required multiple updates in order to provide periodic results.
The multiple updates resulted in the duplication of advanced and early votes.
“In retrospect, we should have followed our usual procedures,” Zimmerman said. She looked at the totals and compared them to the last election “and something didn’t feel right.”
Although, the election night results are unofficial and subject to change until certification at the canvass of votes the Monday following the election, it remains unfortunate that vote totals were incorrectly reported, Zimmerman said.
The Barton County Commission will meet at 8 a.m. Monday in Zimmerman’s office to act as the Board of Canvassers.
