UPDATE: Comparing Election Night with Hand Recount of Defectively Optically Scanned Paper Ballots for School Boards

Before starting this comparison, let me express my personal opinion that we should be voting with old fashioned paper ballots that judges count in the precinct.

Judges would put a hashmark on the tally sheet for every fifth vote.

I trust the eyes of judges more than the obviously poorly adjusted scanners, which apparently were not programmed to scan a wide enough area on the miscounted ballots.

Now, let’s look at changes in McHenry County school district candidate totals.

I can only make comparisons for the contested races I posted election eve. Had to shut down my computer last night and seem to have blown away the County Clerk’s results from then.

The current results can be found here.

Johnsburg Unit District 12

(Orginal results)

Changes are below:

  • Barrett – from 983 to 868, down 115
  • Ness – from 870 to 1,055, up 185
  • Offling – from 686 to 1,032, up 346
  • Link – from 540 to 773, up 233
  • Donald – from 388 to 539, up 151
  • Haller – from 151 to 529, up 378

Total votes went from 3.618 to 4,796.

That is a stunning undercount–24.6% for Haller–but no change in who won.

Ness and Offling were endorsed by the Democrats.

Huntley Unit District 158

Original McHenry and Kane County results:

Vote totals after hand recount:

Changes are below:

  • Policheri from 1,027 to 769, down 258
  • Cratty from 1,033 to 1,253, up 220
  • Melendy from 1,116 to 1,167, up 36
  • Troy from 946 to 1,110, up 51
  • Dalton-Wiley from 881 to 699, down 132
  • Quagliano from 773 to 1,051, down 278
  • Masino from 314 to 546, up 232

Only write-in Jennifer Sargent was endorsed.

John Lopez handled the Huntley School District. He will provide an update.

Alden-Hebron Unit District 19

Here are the election night results:

Changes are below:

  • Madsen from 308 to 300, down 8 votes
  • Smith from 232 to 318, up 86 votes
  • Mesiek from 271 to 217, down 54 votes
  • Berg from 244 to 275, up 31 votes
  • Madsen, Jr., from 248 to 218, down 30 votes
  • Eskridge from 35 to 257. up 220 votes
Alden-Hebron School District results after the hand recount.

The top four are now

  • Smith
  • Madsen
  • Berg
  • Eskridge

Election night the results were

The clear winners were

  • Andy Madsen
  • Matt Misek
  • Penny Smith

Four votes separated Ricky Madsen, Jr., from Branden Berg.

The Democratic Party endorsed

  • Misek
  • Smith

Woodstock Unit District 200

There was no contest in the Woodstock School District, so I did not capture an image of the election night results.

Here are the totals after the hand recount:

Woodstock School District returns after the hand recount

Serving on the Board will be

  • Jacob Homuth
  • Carl Gilmore
  • Bruce Farris
  • John Parisi

All but Farris were endorsed by the Democratic Party.

Harvard Unit School District 60

Again, because there was no contest, I don’t have election night returns.

Here are the ones after the hand recount:

Harvard School District returns after the hand recount

Winning were

  • Kristina Duber
  • Todd Ramberg
  • Melinda Shaffer

None were endorsed by local Democrats.

Marengo High School District 154

Again, since there was no contest, I do not have election night totals.

The results after the hand recount are below:

Marengo High School District results after the hand recount.

Winners were

  • Linda Duimovich
  • Jodie Kanaly
  • Todd Verkening
  • David Schultz

Duimovich was endorsed by the Democrats.

Crystal Lake High School District 155

No contest for the Crystal Lake High School Board, so no election night results to report, except that Ron Ludwig had only votes in the mid-400’s.

Here is the revision after the hand recount:

Crystal Lake High School District results after the hand recount.

Victorious were

  • Jason Blake
  • Nicole Pavoris
  • David Secrest
  • Ronald Ludwig

How Ludwig went from last to second is a mystery.

Pavoris and Secrest were endorsed by the Democrats.

McHenry High School District 156

No contest for the McHenry High School Board, so I did not spend time capturing the election night votes.

Here are the results after the hand recount:

McHenry High School District results after the hand recount.

Winning were

  • Timothy Hying (two-year term)
  • Amanda Lobbins (four-year term)
  • Pat Arnold (four-year term)
  • Ronald Fischer (four-year term)
  • Gary Kinshofer (four-year term)

Arnold was the only one endorsed by the Democrats.

Richmond-Burton High School District 157

The number filing for office equaled the number on the ballot, so I did not capture election night results.

Here are the post-hand recount tallies:

Richmond-Burton High School District results after the hand recount.

Winning were

  • Theresa Highley
  • Joseph Keim

Both were endorsed by the Democratic Party.

McHenry Grade School District 15

There was a contest for the McHenry Elementary School Board.

Here are the election night results:

Election night results for the McHenry Grade School Board.

What follows are the results after the hand recount of scanned ballots:

McHenry Grade School tallies after hand recount.

Some candidates saw higher totals, some lower.

  • Lindsey Morley from 1,563 to 1,709, up 146
  • Chad Mihevc from 1,592 to 1,528, down 64
  • Patrick DeGeorge from 1,568 to 1,391, down 167
  • Rachel McDonnell from 689 to 1,670, up 981
  • Jennifer Synek from 630 to 1,694, up 1.064

Winners now all but DeGeorge.

Apparent winner on election night were

  • Chad Mihevc
  • Patrick DeGeorge
  • Lindsay Morley
  • Rachel McConnell

All but Morley were endorsed by the Democratic Party.

Marengo-Union Grade School District 165

There being no contest in the Marengo-Union Grade School District, I did not take an image of election night results.

Here are tallies after the hand recount:

Marengo-Union Grade School tallies after hand recount.

Winning were

  • Gregory Wright
  • Nicole Mistura
  • Richard Czepcznski

All three were endorsed by the Democratic Party.

Riley Grade School District 18

No opposition in the Riley Grade School District either, so all I have are the post-hand recount results:

Riley Grade School tallies after hand recount.

Winning were

  • Evan Maniates
  • Joshua Koelper
  • Rick Nordmeyer

Maniates was endorsed by the Democrats.

Cary Grade School District 26

Cary is where the vote tabulation problem was first noticed by an observant Democratic Precinct Committeeperson. She knew people has voted for a particular candidate on election day, but no votes showed up for her.

Here are the results from election night:

After the recount, the McHenry County results changed to the following:

Cary Grade School tallies after hand recount.
  • Hartman went from 853 to 990, a gain of 147 votes
  • Santucci went from 995 to 1,089, up 96 votes
  • Stefani went from 785 to 807, up 22
  • Sault went from 785 to 1,018, up 233
  • Jette went from 265 to 916, up 651

Santucci, Hartman, Sault and Jette were endorsed by the Democratic Party, so all four of that party’s candidates won.

Fox River Grove Grade School District 3

Since there were only two people running for two slots, I did not capture the election night returns.

After the hand recount of election day balloting, these are the results:

Fox River Grove Grade School tallies after hand recount.

Winning are

  • David Guterrez
  • Tracy Klein

Guterrez and Klein were endorsed by the Democrats.

Harrison (Wonder Lake) Grade School District 36

Here, too, there was no contest on election day, so I captured no image of results.

Here are the results after the hand recount:

Harrtson (Wnder Lske) Grade School tallies after hand recount.

The victor were

  • Linda Amettis
  • Frank Cermak III
  • Andrea Hartfield

Amettis and Hartfield were endorsed by the Democrats.

Prairie Grove Grade School District 46

Because only one person was running for four seats in the Prairie Grove Grade School District, I took no notice of it on election night, hence no vote count.

Here is what the result was after the hand recount:

Prairie Grove Grade School tallies after hand recount.

Steven Sebastian won.

Neither he nor write-in candidate David Costa were endorsed by local Democrats.

Crystal Lake Grade School District 47

There was quite a contest in the Crystal Lake Elementary District.

Here are the election night results:

Ahesd election night the top four were

  • Tim Mahaff – 2,410 votes
  • Emily Smith – 2,366
  • Debra Barton – 2,341
  • Jonathon Powell – 2,032

After the recount, the totals were different:

Crystal Lake Grade School results ster the hand recount.

Ahead after the recount were

  • Tim Mahaffy from 2,410 to 2,616, up 206
  • Debra Barton from 2,341 to 2,573, +a gain of 323
  • Jonathan Powell from 2,032 to 2,422, plus 390
  • Betsy Less from 1,953 to 2,313, up 360

Barton, Mahaffy and Palombit were endorsed by local Democrats.

Nippersink (Richmond and Spring Grove) Grade School District 2

With four people running for four seats I did not capture the image of election results in the Nippersink School District on election night.

Here are the results after the hand recount:

Nippersink Grade School results ster the hand recount

Victors are

  • Joel Johnson
  • Carl Uphoff
  • Elke Keisch
  • Robin Taylor

Johnson, Uphoff and Keisch were endorsed by the Democratic Party. Write-in Brian Andrus was not.


Comments

UPDATE: Comparing Election Night with Hand Recount of Defectively Optically Scanned Paper Ballots for School Boards — 13 Comments

  1. I agree with your assessment Cal.

    The miscounts are an indication of many things wrong in this new era of digital everything and the possibility of either malfeasance, stupidity, fraud, easy manipulation, etc.

    The larger question is who exactly is pulling the levers?

  2. Wow, can’t Tirio just go back to paper ballots and one day elections?

  3. This why so many people have lost confidence in the corrupt system.

    The presidential election in 2020 made me sick.

    When I see Stacy Abrams screaming I want to toss her off El Capitan.

  4. How curious–the Cary District 26 Race, shows all the Dem backed candidates getting a gargantuan number increase in votes in the “recount”, while the non Dem backed one gets only 22?

    So similar to the Presidential Election.

    Fix this Mess.

  5. The days of complaining on this blog about the ineptness of Mary McClellan and somehow Joe Tirio has done worse.

    Can either do the job or he can’t.

    The defense given is elections are hard.

    This is the job he was elected to do.

    He can’t either do it or he can’t.

  6. The one-day election question is in the power of the General Assembly, not county clerks.

  7. Every County In IL ran a successful election except one. McHenry County. Stop the excuses.

  8. “Hand counted paper ballots would fix it, I think.”

    LET’S GO!!!

  9. Of all the larger counties they didn’t have any issues. Is that because they don’t care to look for variances?

    How many provisional ballots in the last election where cast in the collar counties % wise to McHenry County?

    Nobody raises an eyebrow to that.

  10. So whats the excuse?

    Elections are hard or Joe looked for variances?

    Even though he had to be told of the variances.

    “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”

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