Election Officials ‘Find’ New Ballots Favoring Democrat in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District

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Aug 9, 2018

Election officials have “found” new ballots that were supposedly not counted during Tuesday’s special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District.

“Republican Troy Balderson’s narrow lead in the special election for Ohio’s 12th Congressional District got even narrower on Wednesday, as Franklin County elections officials discovered additional uncounted ballots that favored Democrat Danny O’Connor,” according to Cleveland.com.

Franklin County is the only county in the district that O’Connor won on Tuesday.

The 588 ballots were found during a “routine audit,” and have cut Balderson’s lead to a total of 1,564 votes. O’Connor has refused to concede the election as the two candidates wait for 8,483 provisional and absentee ballots to be processed.

Of the ballots that have not been counted, 2,440 are from Franklin County, making it conceivable that O’Connor could still eek out a victory, though it’s unlikely as provisional ballots are often deemed invalid.

If O’Conner manages to narrow Balderson’s lead to 0.5%, or 1,017 total votes an automatic recount will take place per state law.

President Donald J. Trump claimed victory for Balderson on Wednesday after endorsing him at an Ohio rally early this week.

“When I decided to go to Ohio for Troy Balderson, he was down in early voting 64 to 36. That was not good. After my speech on Saturday night, there was a big turn for the better. Now Troy wins a great victory during a very tough time of the year for voting. He will win BIG in Nov,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1027026526871740417

Suffice to say there could be major Republican backlash should the results be flipped and O’Connor determined the winner.