Recount goes to Bush

By CARL BURNETT JR.
The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette Staff   22 December 2004

LANCASTER President George W. Bush won by a 2-1 margin in Fairfield County, even after the official recount was completed Saturday.

All the candidates who had votes in the preliminary election count gained votes during the recount, but it did little to change the outcome of the victory.

The Bush/Cheney team went from 42,057 in the preliminary count to 42,715 votes in the final recount. The Kerry/Edwards ticket went from 24,321 to 24,783.

The Peroutka/Baldwin team went from 189 to 191 and the Badnarik/Campa ticket went from 187 to 190 votes. None of the other candidates received more than 100 votes.

"The recount did not change the outcome of any of the races," said Alice Nicolia, director of the Fairfield County Board of Elections.

Earlier this month candidates minor party candidates Michael Badnarik and David Cobb requested the recount. Cobb received no votes in either the preliminary or the recount in Fairfield County.

The recount did not go without problems.

The official recount was scheduled for last Wednesday.

Nicolia said when they did the hand count and compared that to the voting machine's count, they didn't match.

"But we had a back up tabulator (voting machine counter)," Nicolia said.

When they tried that one, it didn't work either.

With nothing else to do, Nicolia said the tabulator room was locked until a technician from the company could come.

"The earliest they could send someone was Saturday," Nicolia said.

The technician brought in a new tabulator and worked on the old one.

"We decided to use the new one he had brought in," Nicolia said.

They tested the machine and test batch matched the hand count.

"We were in touch with the Secretary of State's Office all the time," Nicolia said.

James Lee, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's Office, said everything appeared to have been done correctly.

"Mechanical devices break down from time to time," Lee said. "The Board of Elections followed proper procedures as far as we know. Unfortunately there are people with political agendas from outside Ohio that trying to rewrite Ohio election laws and that's unfortunate for everyone."