Multiple counties delayed certification of their recount of Utah’s 2nd Congressional District Republican primary race between Rep. Celeste Maloy and Colby Jenkins because of a software error that prevented tabulation machines from updating results.
Jenkins trailed Maloy by 214 votes when county results were finalized on July 9. A winner has not been declared in the Maloy-Jenkins race, despite more than a month passing since the June 25 Election Day, because the close margin is within the recount threshold established by state code of .25% of total votes cast.
In the midst of the recount, when election officials in Tooele and Washington counties attempted to update the tally recorded by vote-counting equipment, they were met with an “error message” that the “adjudicated ballots were not reflected in the total results,” Washington County stated in a press release on Thursday.
Adjudicated ballots are those with unclear markings that require poll workers to determine the voter’s intent. They usually occur when voters accidentally mark two bubbles and then attempt to correct it by indicating which candidate they really want to vote for.
“In an abundance of caution, our office is going to review all adjudicated ballots,” Washington County Clerk Ryan Sullivan said.
Tooele County discovers machine error
The error was first discovered by Tooele County Clerk Tracy Shaw, according to a statement from Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who oversees elections in the state.
“Nothing is more important to state and local election officials than ensuring that every eligible vote is accurately counted,” Henderson said in a statement on Friday. “This is part of the process and why we have recounts. I am grateful to Tooele County Clerk Tracy Shaw who, because of her diligence, discovered this issue, brought it to our attention, and corrected it.”
Shaw told the Deseret News she became aware of the problem when Tooele County’s recount results were significantly different from the initial count. Shaw’s team reviewed the adjudicated ballots and found no errors in how they had inputted the results.
The election vendor, ES&S, which owns the tabulation equipment used by most counties in Utah, was on site to help identify the problem, Shaw said. While the company looked into the the issue, Shaw’s team did a hand recount of each of the precincts with an adjudicated ballot to get an accurate vote total for each candidate.
ES&S eventually found a way to avoid the error by updating adjudicated ballots in small batches which also allowed Shaw to compare the hand recount with the results from the voting equipment, she said. They determined the issue affected 55 adjudicated ballots.
“I feel very confident that the the new results that I’ve put out today are accurate,” Shaw said.
Counties delay canvass
Tooele County had intended to complete their election canvass, consisting of a 3% hand-count audit and a finalized report, on Tuesday, but pushed it back to Friday as they worked to resolve this issue.
Washington County, which is the only other county known to have been affected by the problem with adjudicated ballots, and Iron County each pushed their canvass from Thursday to Monday to ensure the accuracy of their final results. Monday is the statutory deadline for the recount to be completed following its request by Jenkins on July 29.
Jenkins has filed two lawsuits — both of which were dismissed by a judge. Each of the lawsuits alleged unfair treatment by county election officials who either denied voter information to his campaign or who discarded ballots that were postmarked late by the U.S. Postal Service after they were allegedly put in the mail on time.
Jenkins’ campaign has since petitioned the Utah Supreme Court to challenge the certification of the Republican primary election using similar arguments.
ES&S voting equipment
In a post on Thursday, Jenkins drew attention to the fact that most of the 13 counties in the 2nd Congressional District rely on ES&S, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of voting technology, to count their ballots.
The company came under scrutiny in Georgia’s 2018 race for governor and Florida’s 2006 elections when its software made major mistakes that resulted in the loss of thousands of votes, ProPublica reported.
Iron County Clerk Jon Whittaker confirmed that all 13 counties in the 2nd Congressional District use ES&S-technology, with the exception of Salt Lake County, which uses machines from Dominion Voting Systems, and Beaver County, which uses machines from Unisyn Voting Solutions.
Despite using the same software as Tooele and Washington counties, Iron County did not experience the same error, Whittaker told the Deseret News.
After finding out about the issue, Whittaker said they had the vendor double-check to make sure they did not have the same problem by reviewing the error log. Iron County also compared precinct level results to the recount totals and found “they were spot on.”
Shaw said she was impressed with the helpful response from their technology vendor and plans to continue working with ES&S in the future.
“My concerns are resolved with them,” Shaw said. “Just as I’m imperfect as a clerk, they’re also humans and imperfect in their processes sometimes, but all we can do is work together to fix it and so we don’t have this issue ever again in our future elections, which I 100% believe will be the case going forward.”
Davis, Juab, Kane, Piute, Salt Lake, Sevier, Tooele and Wayne counties have all fully reported their recount results. Millard, Washington, Iron, Garfield and Beaver counties have not.
The certified election returns from county officials will be the official results of the recount. The office of the lieutenant governor does not count any ballots.