David Oh’s lead over incumbent City Councilman Jack Kelly fell to 7 votes Thursday after all machine votes were counted in the unofficial tally.
Oh, challenging Kelly for one of two at-large council seats reserved for the minority party, has 60,366 votes, to 60,359 for Kelly. He held a 24-vote lead Wednesday before the final 0.5 percent of divisions came today.
Bob Lee, the city's voter registration administrator, said it usually takes several days after the elections to gather all machine cartridges — at least two of them were found in a police cruiser, having fallen out of a plastic bag when the officer delivered them from their polling place. It’s not the first time that has happened.
Official count of the machines, which includes re-reading of digital cartridges, will be done Friday, but that won’t produce a final result.
The race is expected to be decided over the next two weeks as more than 2,400 absentee, military and provisional ballots are counted, starting wtih absentee ballots Friday.
Comments (2)
The AB Vote usually favors the inumbent since many are submitted prior to mailings, etc. Would be very surprised if Oh's lead holds up
Posted by Anonymous | November 8, 2007 9:29 PM
Posted on November 8, 2007 21:29
When an election goes into a re-count, the voter's are at the mercy of election officials. This is a well known piece of their power at front and spring garden. In a general election, especially federal ones, the poll (cheater's) worker's, as a rule, do not agree to help each other with the counts. Federal violations are more risque. Primaries are a whole other story. Deals are made, and machines/ counts are something for us to be concerned about. I know committee people, that today, are even judges, sitting and judging others, who have in the past tampered with counts in one way or another. It is all done at the polling place,sometimes the night before. They really should be ashamded of themselves, but after all, they are politicians. They even forge documents, such as; petitions and street money receipts, to serve their own purpose. The street money, don't always get to the pollworkers, because it winds up in the Mr.Bigleader's pocket. Yet, the poll people, still do their bidding. In return, they get a job, complements of our tax money. Croneism, and family members, are the biggest benefactor's. All other non-such, get their beaks wet when all is said and done, maybe. The key to honesty and integrity lies in the hands of committee people, enter the term "committeeman election". Any such person, after elected in their division, should be in a class of their own, and out from under a ward leader, yet these are party rules. If there was just a way to put them in a classification (paid job) working down in the election office, things would be more honest. Their are a lot of committeepeople, but even one re-count event is costly enough to pay half of them. Just a thought, peace of mind can be expensive. The new mayor, right after he solves our crime problem in Philadelphia, should make honest elections a priority. I spent a weekend at the Ritz Carlton a few weeks ago, and to my surprise, downtown looked really good, and other's staying at the Ritz expressed this too. Parking was a little hard to swallow, $38.oo over one night, even if staying at the Ritz, but hey, that's a problem for another time. However, the one thing everyone agreed on, was the problem with crooked elected officials in Philly. This is making headlines all over, and I came away knowing, it can be fixed. Michael, if your listening/reading, take charge.
Posted by frank graff | November 9, 2007 5:43 AM
Posted on November 9, 2007 05:43