Dec. 10—JEFFERSON — The Ashtabula County Board of Elections conducted a post-election audit Monday.
The post-election audit sees if the hand count lines up with voting machine-counted official election results.
Post-election audits in Ohio are required to occur after every election, hand count 5% of county ballots and look at two top tickets and one county-wide issue or race.
Monday’s audit looked at county votes for the Presidency, Ohio United States Senate and Clerk of Courts.
Board of Elections Deputy Director John Mead said the audit looked at roughly 2,000 ballots.
Board of Elections Director Charlie Frye said audits act as checks to see if the election is going smoothly.
“Just randomly pulling ballots from different locations, we hand count those to make sure our numbers match the election day [results] or the official numbers,” he said.
Frye said audits, unlike recounts, do not choose the races to hand count based on the closeness results.
“You’re basically checking the system,” he said. “Its an audit of the system.”
Mead said the mechanics of a recount and audit are the same.
“A physical recount and a physical audit is performed the same way,” he said.
Board of elections offices can either hand count by precinct or polling location.
Frye said the board decided to count by polling location.
He added the audit did not find any issues.
“The audit itself came across as flawless,” he said.
Frye said this audit was similar to past ones.
“I can only recall maybe one occasion, where we ran an audit, where had a discrepancy on hand count versus machine-counted by one vote, that launched us into hand counting more,” he said.
The audit was originally set to Dec. 3.
Mead said the audit was delayed by last week’s snowstorm.
“We were able to delay the audit and the recount without consequence,” he said.
Mead said the board of elections could operate on days it wasn’t closed last week.
“Those who lived in Jefferson came to work,” he said. “Those who lived north did not.”
Frye said the weather slowed their work.
“It is what it is,” he said. “We live in Northeast Ohio.”
Mead said he was thankful for the help the board of elections received from seasonal help, in-office help and poll workers.