[EL] message from J.H. Snider re Annapolis vote counting

[Rick Hasen]

*From:* J.H. Snider
*Sent:* Thursday, November 07, 2013 7:55 PM
*To:* 'law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu 
<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>'
*Subject:* Annapolis, Maryland appears to be on the verge of a classic 
vote counting fiasco generated by incompetent electoral administration

After all the votes were counted on election eve in Annapolis, Maryland, 
the Democratic incumbent mayor had 84 fewer votes than the Republican 
challenger.  Today the remaining provisional and absentee ballots were 
supposed to be counted by the Annapolis election board, which is 
composed of two Democrats and one Republican.  But an unexpected snag 
arose.  As of this evening when the counting was put on hold until 
tomorrow, the tally gives the Republican challenger an 82 vote lead.  
But there are 197 absentee ballots lacking date stamps that haven't yet 
been officially counted but are informally reported to run 6:1 for the 
incumbent and thus provide him with a winning margin.  The undated 
absentee ballots are reportedly the ones hand delivered to the election 
office, and there is a disagreement about whether they should be 
counted.  You may recall that the counting of such absentee ballots was 
a controversial feature of the 2000 presidential vote counting dispute 
in Florida.

I have relied on this local newspaper story for my facts: Almost 200 
ballots could decide Annapolis winner, bring lawsuit 
<http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/election/almost-ballots-could-decide-annapolis-winner-bring-lawsuit/article_5abb87c2-73f9-553a-a470-595e863f3578.html> 
(this is an online story from the /Capital/ that may be updated).   I've 
pasted the contents below.  I've also posted the /Baltimore Sun/'s 
slightly different account of events as of 5:18 pm this evening.  See 
Absentee count in Annapolis mayoral race drags on 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/annapolis/bs-md-ar-annapolis-election-canvass-20131107,0,7010463.story>.

--Jim Snider

iSolon.org


  Almost 200 ballots could decide Annapolis winner, bring lawsuit

*By JACK LAMBERT jlambert at capgaznews.com 
<mailto:jlambert at capgaznews.com> | Posted: Thursday, November 7, 2013 
5:24 pm | Updated: 6:15 pm, Thu Nov 7, 2013.*

A handful of votes and a ruling from election officials, or a judge, 
could determine the next mayor of Annapolis.

The Annapolis Board of Canvassers spent much of Thursday sorting out 
absentee ballots into three categories: accepted ballots, rejected 
ballots and a third pile set aside for later. The third group of 
ballots, the ones set aside for later, drew the most attention from 
lawyers representing mayoral candidates Mike Pantelides and Josh Cohen.

Pantelides, a Republican, led Democratic incumbent Cohen by 82 votes as 
of 12 p.m. Thursday. There were 197 ballots in the "set aside" pile, 
according to Timothy Murnane, an attorney representing the Pantelides 
campaign. Most of those ballots did not include postmarks.

A campaign source told /The Capital/ those ballots favored the mayor by 
a six-to-one margin. That would give Cohen an extra 167 votes and 
Pantelides only 33, putting Cohen then ahead by 80 votes.

The Annapolis Board of Canvassers did not rule on the ballots without 
postmarks and with tape closures, as of 6 p.m.

Murnane argued if a ballot was not clearly postmarked or time stamped 
before Nov. 6, it should not count in the election. Absentee ballots 
must be postmarked or time stamped by Nov. 5 and received by the 
Annapolis Board of Election Supervisors by Nov. 6, according to city code.

Without a postmark or time stamp, Murnane argued the unstamped ballots 
should be disqualified.

"This isn't rocket science. This is Mayberry. This is theater of the 
absurd," Murnane said.

Not every absentee vote, however, is mailed to the Annapolis Board of 
Election Supervisors. Some residents hand deliver their votes.

Del. Herb McMillan, R-Annapolis, said he hand delivered 
<http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/election/del-herb-mcmillan-my-vote-should-count/article_ea3b3d90-e8ce-58b5-bc9e-91bba9a60084.html> his 
ballot on Tuesday. He said a city election clerk never put a date or a 
time stamp on his absentee ballot, which Annapolis City Code requires.

"This isn't about who's Republican or Democrat," said McMillan, who was 
at Republican mayoral candidate Mike Pantelides' party on election 
night. "It just blows my mind - I handed the clerk my ballot. What else 
is a voter supposed to do?"

Cohen's campaign argued in favor of accepting the votes in the "set 
aside" pile.

"Mayor Cohen thinks all votes should be counted," Eric Lipsetts, an 
attorney representing the Cohen campaign.


  Absentee count in Annapolis mayoral race drags on

By Pamela Wood, The Baltimore Sun

/5:18 p.m. EST, November 7, 2013/

The mayoral race in *Annapolis* 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/us/maryland/anne-arundel-county/annapolis-PLGEO100100602010000.topic> may 
come down to postmarks and scotch tape.

For hours on Thursday, elections officials scrutinized hundreds of 
absentee ballots in a cold, musty old recreation center, trying to 
decide whether the voters followed all of the proper rules.

Did they give a reason for needing an absentee ballot? Did they sign it? 
Was the ballot mailed in time?

As the three-member Board of Canvassers sat at a folding table, 
reviewing and sorting ballots, a swarm of lawyers for candidates Mike 
Pantelides and *Josh Cohen* 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/politics/government/josh-cohen-PEPLT00008134.topic> looked 
over their shoulders.

Republican Pantelides and Democrat Cohen are separated by 82 votes.

Lawyers, campaign managers and supporters for both candidates filed in 
and out of the old Annapolis Recreation Center as the day wore on. The 
lawyers plotted strategy and piped up to challenge the acceptance of 
ballots.

By 5 p.m., eight hours into the election canvass, not a single absentee 
ballot had been counted.

At that point, the Board of Canvassers had separated ballots into five 
piles on the table in front of them: accepted, rejected, "set aside" for 
further review, accepted and challenged and rejected and challenged.

The only votes that were tallied on Thursday came from a single voting 
machine that had trouble printing out an unofficial vote count on 
Election Night. An even 100 votes were cast on that machine at the 
Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library --- 53 for Pantelides and 47 for Cohen.

Cohen also picked up eight votes from another precinct as the unofficial 
total that was called into the election office Tuesday was deemed incorrect.

With the election so close and more than 300 absentee and provisional 
ballots to count, both campaigns had a sense of urgency Thursday.

Pantelides joined his team at the start of the canvass, sitting in the 
front row and observing while his team asked questions and lodged 
challenges, though he eventually left, then returned.

Timothy Murnane, an attorney for the Pantelides campaign, made it clear 
he was laying the groundwork for a potential legal challenge.

After an initial review of absentee ballots that resulted in the five 
piles of ballots, Murnane asked for the approved ballots to be tallied 
before the challenged ones, and "set aside" ballots were given a second 
review. He said for a legal case, he'd need to show that the outcome may 
be different if rejected ballots were counted.

Cohen did not attend the canvass, but Jonathan Kagan, an attorney for 
the incumbent mayor's campaign, told reporters that he was there to make 
sure every ballot was counted properly and to ensure "the integrity of 
the whole process."

"It's been a slow and arduous process," he said.

/*pwood at baltsun.com* <mailto:pwood at baltsun.com>/


  Annapolis mayoral race too close to call, candidates wait for absentee
  ballot count


      By Associated Press,Published: November 6

ANNAPOLIS, Md. --- The mayoral race in Annapolis is too close to call 
with just 84 votes separating the two candidates before a count of 
absentee and provisional ballots.

The Annapolis Board of Supervisors of Elections says Republican Mike 
Pantelides leads Democratic incumbent Josh Cohen with all 16 precincts 
reporting preliminary vote totals. Pantelides received 3,728 votes to 
Cohen's 3,644.

Cohen did not concede, noting that absentee ballots must still be counted.

City spokeswoman Rhonda Wardlaw says there are 327 absentee ballots.

The Board of Supervisors of Elections will meet as the Board of 
Canvassers on Thursday to count all absentee and provisional ballots and 
verify results from individual machines. The board also will count votes 
from a broken voting machine from Ward 7 at that time.


-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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