Undervotes, overvotes? Boone County Clerk explains election results note
Election results from Tuesday will become official Friday as a bipartisan team of election officers certify results.
The team will conduct a hand-count audit and adjudicate the 40 provisional ballots cast Tuesday. The election was a successful day and Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon commended poll workers.
Unofficial summary results posted online Tuesday night also included notations on under- and overvotes. This is not typically included in posted summary results, but is something that always is provided to the bipartisan election audit team, Lennon said.
"Undervotes are where the voter marks less candidates for a race than to be elected. Overvotes are where the voter marks more candidates for a race than to be elected," she said.
In the case of the Columbia school board election, voters were expected to vote for two candidates. If they only voted for one candidate, that is considered one vote and one undervote, Lennon explained. If left blank, that is two undervotes. If a person voted for all three candidates, that is an overvote and considered invalid.
"In fact, if the voter tries to cast an overvote, the voting machine asks the voter to confirm that they are sure they want to cast an overvote because overvotes are invalid," Lennon said. "It’s a process called second-chance voting, which is required by federal law."
When the election audit team meets it will do the hand count of 5% of our polling places, accounting for all votes, undervotes, and overvotes.
"(This is) to ensure the machines accurately tabulated," Lennon said. "Then, when the results are certified, the official results are all the valid votes so undervotes and overvotes aren’t relevant at that point."
Lennon had predicted 19% voter turnout and Tuesday's summary noted roughly 16%. This still is within expected turnout, she said, noting that the previous municipal election voters were selecting Wards 2 and 6 representation, it had 13.6% turnout.
While county and state level candidates have all but secured their names on at least the August primary ballot, there still is time for city, county and even state initiatives to be put on the ballot, Lennon noted.
"The deadline for finalizing the August ballot is not until May 28," Lennon said, noting that there were no additional candidate filings as of Wednesday for Boone County Public Administrator. Republican candidate Nancy Bohannon withdrew within the two days prior to the candidate filing closing, so it triggered an additional filing period this week, through 5 p.m. Friday for that position.
Previously: Boone County clerk answers what percentage of voters will cast ballots Tuesday
Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Boone County municipal election results to receive certification
