Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.
State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result.
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NOTE: The 155,000 cited by the Secretary of State of Ohio does not include totals from 10 counties which have not yet reported how many votes they have yet to turn in.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
In a week or so we might find out that Kerry in fact won Ohio. The Secretary of State of Ohio has said that regardless of conceding, Kerry could still win if the numbers did actually change.
This is no conspiracy theory!
I won't get my hopes up, and I won't draw conclusions, but I bet this won't be the first story to pop up like this from Ohio......