Late absentee ballot counts draw questions

After more than 3,000 absentee ballots were entered after Election Night, swinging the register of wills seat in Kent County, the head of the GOP is questioning how those ballots were processed.

Julianne Murray, head of the state GOP, said they lodged an objection with the Board of Canvass the Thursday following election night after Republican Colin Bonini was ahead by 429 votes at the end of the night, but the totals swung to his opponent, Democrat DJ Cox, the next day.

“At noon, it changed,” she said.

She believes the 3,300 ballots were received by the 8 p.m. deadline, but sent a preservation letter just in case further review is necessary. 

Murray said two temporary employees, one Democrat and one Republican, upload the absentee ballots. In cases where a ballot had more than one vote, or was unable to be processed by the computer, Murray said, a duplicate ballot was filled out by an employee.

When they went to tabulate, it required hand processing, but Murray is not sure how many were processed that way. She said Election Commissioner Anthony Albence told her the process started that night and continued the next day, and it was not a ballot dump.

“My response was that 3,300 is an incredible number when you consider there were 5,500 total [absentee ballots],” she said.

Murray also questions why it took so long, and if this is the case across all counties, why wouldn’t New Castle County have more ballots to count? She has requested details on how many ballots required hand-counting in New Castle and Sussex counties, and is waiting for an answer.

In Sussex County, Department of Elections Director Kenneth “Bo” McDowell, a Democrat, said he and his deputy, a Republican, process absentee ballots received. He said thousands of ballots had to be adjudicated, and it took them until 1:45 a.m. to finish.

“We try to do everything by the book,” he said.

Murray also questioned a new process in the voting booths that issued a prompt if a voter did not fill out the entire ballot. If seats were left blank, the prompt asked the voter if they were sure they wanted to file their ballot.

“That’s a problem. That benefits, in this case with our registration numbers, the Democrat candidates tremendously down ballot,” Murray said. “Tell me the statutory basis for this, because we had no warning that was coming.”

After a meeting with Albence, Murray said she and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Ramone were told the change was due to a system upgrade by the vendor, and that state law requires the latest version be used.

“We both completely hammered that this is a huge difference,” she said. “It can be voter confusion if people feel like they’re required to vote the entire ballot. When you get this warning that pops up and you’re not sure what to do, there are people that will go back and fill in the entire ballot to make sure their vote counts.”

Getting answers soon will help alleviate suspicions.

“We’re not saying there was anything untoward, but I want to be able to go to everyone and say this all happened in the normal course of things,” Murray said.