BOARD CERTIFIES ELECTION RESULTS
No significant irregularities found during the canvass
Joe Rozell, Oakland County’s elections director, said no significant or unusual irregularities were discovered during the two-week certification of the county’s election results.
On Tuesday, the county board of canvassers completed the canvass of the county’s election results, a process that began Nov. 4, the day following Election Day. The county’s certified results have been sent off electronically and by mail to the Secretary of State’s Office for State Board of Canvassers review and certification on Nov. 23.
The state’s 82 other county board of canvassers have all certified their election results as well, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Rozell said he and the four canvassers, which included Republicans Wilma Cotton and Bob Copes and Democrats Gloria Harsten- Spann and Charlene Yarbrough, did not notice anything that would substantiate claims of voter fraud, ballot counting issues, or that any other significant irregularities had occurred.
“We did not notice anything unusual during the canvass. The tapes from each voting machine that are printed on election night were matched up against the reports that were in the county database to insure that all the votes were reported correctly. it’s a very detailed, tedious, and long process, but we got through it within the statutory 14 days and I’m very pleased with the work that everyone put into it.”
The elections office has been fielding “a lot” of phone calls from residents about the type of election equipment being used and questioning how secure the county’s election systems are.
Rozell said the county’s election equipment and systems are “very secure and accurate.”
During the canvassing process, it was noticed that absentee ballot results in one Rochester Hills precinct were scanned and reported to the county twice. The city clerk’s office was notified and results information was corrected on the county’s website.
“It proves the process works,” said Rozell. “In my 14 years as elections director, we’ve not had a situation where we were transmitted the same results as different types. This validates the process that it works and it was corrected very early in the canvass. Nothing else occurred during the canvass that gave the board or myself any concern.”
Just with like any other election, adjustments were made during canvassing that involved provisional ballots, ballots that had to be duplicated because they weren’t initially tabulated, and some precincts that were off by one or two votes.
In the end, the number of ballots cast in Oakland County compared to the unofficial results changed by a very negligible margin, according to Rozell.
“The difference in the total number
of ballots cast was less than 300, maybe 220 or so,” he said. “That could be from provisional ballots and those types of things.”
According to the county’s certified results, PresidentElect Joe Biden gained 256 votes (434,148) while President Donald Trump gained 55 votes (325,971) compared to the unofficial results. In addition, U.S. Sen. Gary Peters gained 156 votes (418,312) while Republican
John James gained 60 votes (334,629), nothing close to changing the final result of either race.
Official and final results will soon be posted on the county’s elections website https://www.oakgov.com/clerkrod/elections/ Pages/default.aspx. The results of the write-in races will be on the website as well.
In 2018, every Michigan county and community received new voting equipment after the state signed new 10-year contracts with three equipment vendors. Oakland County chose the Hart Inter
Civic Voting System, as did 10 other counties.
The $40 million in new equipment, which included optical scan tabulators, accessible voting devices, and Election Management System software, was paid for by a combination of state and federal dollars to cover the purchase and first five years of warranty and maintenance.
The county and local governments will begin paying in year six of the 10-year contract period. The amount each government pays will be based on the number of precincts they have.