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Ben Arnold: Unaccounted for ballots could have changed mayoral election outcome Ben Arnold says Curtis is wrong: "Unaccounted for ballots more than enough to have altered outcome of 4 Nov 2016 Columbia mayoral election . . . The money is not the important issue before the people but rather what kind of Community they want. Voting is how and the only way the citizen can control their government. It is a precious right to be defended, in our country and here in little old Columbia. I am supporting the taxpaying citizens, not elected officials, and those who wish to deflect and try to mislead will be called out by me." Comments about: Comments re article 79946 Mayor Curtis Hardwick makes statement on lawsuit By Ben Arnold The 'unaccounted for' ballots of the Mayoral Election last year were more than enough to have changed the election outcome. Curtis's statement, "mistakes made were not enough to impact the outcome of the election" is incorrect. The facts were presented at trial and he and the Board of Election (BoE) heard these. Those facts were also detailed in our response to the BoE's Appeal of Judge Vance's ruling. If Curtis wants to challenge Judge Vance's ruling, then get to the facts and present his reasons why those facts are incorrect. Briefly the facts are: NO absentee votes for Arnold were reported, zero votes! (During the ballot count, I discovered 16 absentee votes for me on the tapes just not reported include one (1) paper absentee vote (1 of 91 cast paper ballots); 91 absentee paper ballots were counted by the BoE and me but only 46 paper absentee votes were reported (where did these 45 votes go?); 71 paper votes for me were not read by the voting machines in error (electronic votes could not be audited so this number is surely higher); There were 55 true undervotes; 53 voters were prevented from voting City and another 52 were misclassified. An indeterminate number were given the wrong ballot and voted anyway (City got county ballots, county got city ballots). There is no way to determine this number; and finally even after this analysis about 100 signatures could not be accounted for with votes or ballots. There were more than enough questionable votes to have changed the election outcome. Some, including Curtis, are parroting the opposing attorneys that only a few mistakes occurred but not enough to be important and that a perfect election is just not possible. This is not an accurate description of what occurred. The election was grossly flawed and KY election laws were violated. Even the dissenting Appeal Judges stated, "To say this was a shoddy election that does not reflect the principles upon which our country was founded on is a gross understatement." Regardless of the number of indeterminate votes, the Board of Elections need to know this election was not acceptable. They had the responsibility along with the County attorney to have called for a new election themselves, not me. The BoE by filing their appeal refuse to accept the truth and dig in to protect reputations or emotions or whatever. This implies that they want to maintain the current culture and their way of doing elections. I say they were wrong to have filed the appeal. Many voters were denied their right to vote and this was the basis on which I brought the election challenge. Even though I can show that more than enough votes were in dispute to have changed the election, what disturbs me now most is something quite different. After all the counting and analysis as stated above there remained about 100 more signatures still unaccounted for, about 2 ballot stub books. When voters travel to the polls, sign in and receive a ballot, those voted ballots should be in the machines. The Board of Election along with me counted the ballots in the machines, double and sometimes a third count by me. We might have miss counted a few, but certainly not 100! Where did those ballots go? When the BoE and myself gathered to count the ballots, the voting machines were rolled out. I saw that 3 did not have the required seal in place. I took photos of all the machines before any were opened. Those photos were made just days before the trial and were presented in Court. Ky election law is very clear that voting machines are to be locked and sealed (KRS 117.275). The seals are the only audit trail for machine tampering and the legislature in their wisdom recognized this in the Law. KRS 119.115 states, "after such machine is locked and sealed in order to preserve the record of the vote, tamper with or attempt to tamper with the record of the vote, or who aids or abets with intent to destroy or change the record of the vote shall be guilty of a Class D felony." The 2 clerks who ran the election with more than 20 years of combined experience and the county attorney surely knew the law. One clerk stated one seal may have been knocked off in transit with no explanation for the 2nd machine or the absentee machine that was not transported. When asked at the counting meeting, I was told by the Clerk, "sometime they just throw them (seals) inside the machines". Implying some poll worker didn't add the seals as required by law. The sheriff of the W Col precinct testified under oath that her machine was locked and sealed. It's seal was not on 2 months later. She has no motivation to lie. The 3rd machine without a seal was the absentee machine. This machine was under the control of the 2 clerks during the entire time and never left the annex building. The Clerks knew the absentee machine was required to be sealed by law. During the ballot counting when the Clerk opened the absentee machine and made the statement, I saw a blue seal lying inside the absentee machine. I did not approach to see if it was cut or intact. When the ballots had been counted I asked to count the ballot book stubs as a cross reference to the ballots. This created a flurry and it was reported they could not find them. We concluded the meeting and some of us left for lunch. (It is the policy of the Board that all members of the Committee are present when the machines are opened.) In minutes I received a call that the stubs had been found. When asked for a 2nd meeting one week later, the machines were rolled out and opened again. The blue seal seen the week before inside the Absentee machine was no longer there. The seals of the other 2 unsealed machines were also not there. The other machines had the seals inside. The opposing attorneys tried to deflect this concern and stated the machines were locked and sealed. They stated the company representative who testified at trial stated, "the machines were locked and sealed". But, the representative was no where near the elections during or after. Further he actually testified, "the machines should have been locked and sealed". This is in the court records. Truth is robust and dishonest deceptions can only survive when unchallenged. The City and Curtis have not been accused of doing anything wrong, but anyone with just a little bit of investigation would see this was a grossly flawed election. I want my leaders to stand up for the citizens and for what is right. This election surely is not acceptable to the voters of our Community. The Board of Election was wrong to bring the Appeal. They themselves should have been calling for a new election as their responsibility to the voters. Now they want the County tax payers to foot their bill for the election they were responsible for executing. They are responsible for costing the tax payers not me as Curtis wishes to promote. The money is not the important issue before the people but rather what kind of Community they want. Voting is how and the only way the citizen can control their government. It is a precious right to be defended, in our country and here in little old Columbia. I am supporting the taxpaying citizens, not elected officials, and those who wish to deflect and try to mislead will be called out by me. Three respectable individuals have approached me with stories from the past where they believe strongly their elections were tampered with and the outcomes changed. No election has been challenged before in our Community. Now I can see how easily a close election could be changed and even how to do it, especially if no one is looking. Without a change of culture of the BoE, any close election in the future will have the cloud of suspicion hanging over it. This is not acceptable for a good and strong Community. - Ben Arnold This story was posted on 2016-01-07 13:21:08
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Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Commentary:
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