SIDNEY — The Shelby County Board of Elections met Monday morning to certify the results of the Nov. 8 general election.
On election day, 17,872 ballots were cast. There were 49 mail-in absentee ballots that were postmarked by Nov. 7 therefore the ballots were accepted by the board and 374 provisional ballots that were approved by the board. There was one ballot that the staff, according to guidelines from the Secretary of State, recommended the board to reject due to the ballot being cast in the wrong precinct. The board chose to go against the recommendation of Director Pam Kerrigan and Deputy Director Ellen Joslin as the ballots for the precinct the voter should have voted in and the ballot for the precinct they did vote in were identical and because both precincts had the same voting location. The addition of this ballot gave the board a total of 375 provisional ballots and 49 late but valid absentee ballots to add to the unofficial canvass from election day.
According to the number of provisional and absentee ballots, the total ballot count for the Nov. 8 election should be 18,296 ballots. After the ballots that were approved by the board during the meeting were electronically counted, the total ballot count came to 18,292. The difference in the estimated count and the actual official ballot count can be attributed to human error. Shelby County had a 55.93% voter turnout for the Nov. 8 election, according the certified results.
The board also set the meeting date for their audit of the Nov. 8 election results and chose precincts to audit the results of the governor and lieutenant governor, U.S. Senator and state issue one. The precincts used for the audit are randomly chosen and the number of votes from the chosen precincts must equal 5% of the total ballot count of Shelby County. The board of elections will be auditing the results from precincts 23, eight and one. 5% of the ballot count for the county would be 916 ballots — the total ballot count of the three precincts chosen equals 1,273.
The board will be auditing the results on Dec. 12 at 9 a.m.
During the meeting Monday morning the board also submitted a public record request for the records of the Nov. 10 meeting with the county commissioners. The board also submitted bills from the purchases of necessary equipment for audit.
