Clean bill of health for Annapolis hand-count primary audit

The hand-count audit Thursday of the entire Annapolis Democratic primary found no mistakes in the official vote count in any race. The audit was conducted following the discovery of a transcription error in the Ward 6 unofficial in-person tallies.

The audit was ordered because Anne Arundel County Board of Elections staff made a transcription error on the unofficial in-person tallies on Sept. 16, switching the figures for Diesha Contee and Craig Cussimanio. The initial report listed Cussimanio as leading when Contee led in in-person votes.

The error was not noticed until a week later, when election staff was conducting the official canvass Tuesday. Contee eventually won the majority of total ballots.

Although election officials said there was no error presented in the official results, the transcription mistake was only in the Ward 6 election and it was present only in the in-person unofficial results, every primary vote was recounted.

The audit, ordered by the city election board Wednesday, cost the county board of elections about $1,300 in payroll costs, according to David Garreis, the director of the county board.

“Our office was more than happy to comply, because we want to make sure everybody can trust the process and trust the results,” Garreis said.

The county will from now on have more auditing steps before releasing unofficial election night results, including on-site verification at a county facility, tape audits by election judges and “more robust checks,” according to a news release Wednesday by County Executive Steuart Pittman.

Updated: Annapolis primary tallies of all votes in mayoral, alderman races

“We apologize to all the candidates and especially Ms. Contee and Mr. Cussimanio for the error,” said Eileen Leahy, chair of the Annapolis Board of Canvassers, in a news release Thursday. “We found the error through our normal procedures, and remedied the mistake, then we expeditiously conducted the audit to give voters and candidates confidence in the outcome.”

Contee, who thought she had lost the alderman election for a week because of the transcription error, was watching the audit from the county election office in Glen Burnie on Thursday morning.

“I just want to make sure that whether it’s me winning or losing, that everybody gets the fair treatment,” Contee said. “I want to make sure nothing like this happens again to somebody else. There’s a lot of emotions and everything put into whether you’re winning or losing.”

Contee won the Democratic primary for Ward 6 alderman with 185 votes against Cussimanio, who had 124 votes.

In the mayoral election, Jared Littmann received 2,594 votes to Rhonda Pindell Charles’ 1,271.

The other alderman candidate primary winners were incumbent Ward 1 Alderman Harry Huntley, Keanuú Smith Brown in Ward 3, andJanice Elaine Allsup-Johnson in Ward 4. Allsup-Johnson’s primary was decided by four votes.

Huntley earned 481 votes against four primary competitors; the second-place primary finisher in Ward 1 was Kathleen McDermott, with 293 votes. Smith Brown earned 340 votes against Deborah Odum, who earned 77 votes. Allsup-Johnson had 144 votes against Coren Eve Makell, who had 140 votes.

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