“Human error” led to inaccurate election results being published by the Crawford County Clerk’s office Tuesday night, commissioners were told Friday
Crawford County Clerk Don Pyle said results from five of the county’s 16 polling locations were counted twice, doubling votes for each candidate and resulting in inaccurate results. He said the mistake was due to human error, not mechanical.
“The polling places make data cards that we insert into software that counts the votes,” he said. “The person inputting the data got interrupted and put five of them in twice.”
Pyle said they discovered the mistake during a routine precinct-by-precinct audit and that it became apparent there was a problem.
“Some precincts were reporting a turnout of 110 percent,” he said.
Pyle said the county does not implement dual control when counting ballots. He cited understaffing and a polling place quirk for the delay in catching the mistake.
“Part of the reason the software didn’t catch it is that one precinct is split between two polling stations, so it doesn’t register as redundant,” he said. During the meeting, Pyle, who is a Democrat, said there are still 330 provisional ballots that are waiting to be processed. He said he expected about 75 percent of those to be valid and counted, the outcome of which will likely decide the winner of the race.
(Read more: Pittsburg Morning Sun)