The Official Canvass of Absentee Ballot “Tally Sheets” Were Rife with Significant Errors

The Official Canvass of Absentee Ballots — the official summary of ballots received, accepted and void and the basis for declaring election outcomes — was so inaccurate that it raises questions about the underlying decisions whether and how to count votes on individual ballots and the tabulations of those votes. A ballot by ballot review of every voided ballot confirmed that hundreds of ballots were improperly voided thereby disenfranchising voters and skewing election outcomes.

The Official Canvass of Absentee Ballots is often referred to as a “tally sheet”. It is signed by the sworn Election Chairperson and the sworn Election Inspectors and notarized by a Notary Public, in this case the School Clerk who ran the election. The tally sheet for each ED is the only school election record that must be retained in perpetuity under New York State law. Ballots and oath envelopes must be sealed for one year after which they can be destroyed.

7 of the 13 tally sheets (ED’s in blue, above), representing more than 60% of registered voters, contain significant errors which bring into question the validity of the entire election.

The New Rochelle School Clerk, who ran the local school election in June then resigned two weeks later, reported that 12,452 ballots were received by the 5 p.m. deadline on June 16th.

While the mail-in election took place over several weeks, roughly 4,500 ballots, what later proved to be half of all received ballots, were delivered by the United States Post Office less than 40 minutes before the polls closed on June 16th.

The Clerk reported that 1,067 ballots were voided so according to her 11,385 ballots were accepted and those votes were counted. Based on her figures, the void rate was 8.57%.

Her figures are wrong.

New Rochelle is divided up into 13 Election Districts, most with between 2,000 and 5,000 registered voters. One ED, located in a block of what was once low-income housing, has just 300 registered voters.

For example, the tally sheet for ED 12 states the Clerk provided the Election Inspectors 2,526 ballots. ED 12 has just 2,309 registered voters — 217 more ballots received than registered voters in the ED. Where other EDs reported about 8% of ballots had no vote cast on the budget referendum, the tally sheet for ED 12 reported 366 “Yes” votes and 222 “No” votes on the school budget referendum; 588 votes cast on the budget referendum or about 77% of the reported ballots with no vote on the budget referendum or about 10 times more than the typical ED. There were 11 school board candidates who combined for 1,142 votes in ED 12 so 55% of reported ballots had no vote for a school board candidate where a typical ED has about 8% of ballots without a vote for a school board candidate.

While our focus was on reviewing voided ballots the errors in ED 12 were so dramatic that we did a hand count of all accepted ballots in ED 12. By our count there was just 614 accepted ballots or 1,912 less than the 2,526 accepted ballots the Election Inspectors attested to in their sworn statements.

In ED 13, a very small ED, the tally sheet states at the top 30 ballots were received and canvassed and 17 valid ballots. It states at the bottom there were 18 valid ballots and zero void ballots. The tally sheet for ED 13 reported 16 “Yes” votes and 5 “No” votes on the school budget referendum; 21 votes cast on the budget referendum in an ED with 17 or 18 ballots. One candidate, Tim McKnight, received 23 votes in an ED with 17 or 18 ballots.

The tally sheet for ED 5 states there were 1,849 accepted ballots but just 497 votes cast on the budget referendum. Due to limited resources we did not do a hand count for ED 5 but the true number of accepted ballots is more likely about 550 valid ballots not 1,849.

There were smaller but still meaningful discrepancies in ED 2, ED 4, ED 6, ED 10 and ED 11.

JUNE 2020 New Rochelle School Election Series

Massive Election Irregularities in New Rochelle School Election Show Need for Audit, Restoration of Wrongly Voided Ballots

Process for Accepting or Reject Ballots in the June 2020 New Rochelle School Election

Examples of Common Voter Errors in the June 2020 New Rochelle School Election

Examples of Common Election Inspector Errors in the June 2020 New Rochelle School Election

Examples of Fraud Detected by Election Inspectors in the June 2020 New Rochelle School Election

The Official Canvass of Absentee Ballot “Tally Sheets” Were Rife with Significant Errors

Many Ballots Were Not Sealed, No Voided Ballots Were Individually Sealed

Absentee Ballots Were Not Secret But Voiding of Ballots Was

Ballots of Prominent New Rochelle Residents Including Elected Officials Were Voided

School Board Candidates Concerned About Integrity of June 2020 New Rochelle School Election