198 + 193 = 369
The election was a simple yes or no vote on a bond issue. At the close of the day there had been 369 voters at the Grafton, New Hampshire polling place. The final tally was a close 198 no votes to 193 yes votes.
“At that point nobody does the math — you’re so tired, you’re just trying to put the place back together and get out of there,” Joyce said of the post-election process at the fire house.
The election officials packed up and went home to bed.
ZZZZZZZZZ.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
ZZZZZZZZZZ198+193=369ZZZZZZZ?ZZZZZZZZZ198+193=369ZZ ZZZZ?ZZZZZZZZ?ZZZZZZZZZZZZ198+193=369?ZZZZZZ?ZZZZZZZ
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Joyce woke Town Clerk Mary McDow with a phone call at 6:45 a.m. McDow decided the best thing to do was nothing, until the Attorney General’s Office was contacted.
The Attorney General agreed that 369 voters should not have cast 391 votes, and he hauled the machine in for questioning.
The good news is that the machine had counted paper ballots incorrectly, so a recount is possible. In fact, one poll worker even called it “not such a bad idea, just to test the accuracy of the machine.”
The bad news is that these were Diebold Accu-Vote OS scanners, which may be counting your paper ballot next time you vote. You can see a photo of one here, and a table of who has them here.