State Election Audit Finds Missing Daviess County Votes

The missing ballots were eventually found after the clerk's office spent days searching through 32 thousand envelopes by hand.

Back at home - the pandemic primary - is leaving behind a long list of complications.

We're learning tonight -daviess county - discovered an election error.

An audit now underway to pinpoint what went wrong.

And as - 44news reporter valerie lyons explains - the issue is also being taken to the grand jury - and the county election board.

The daviess county clerk office says those missing ballots were eventually found after office staff spent days searching through 32 thousand envelopes.

When a kentucky state audit found a discrepancy in its reported primary numbers county clerk office discovered 66 ballots unaccounted for.

Daviess was one of six counties randomly picked for a state audit because counting was conducted electronically instead of manually says it didn realize the error until the audit process.

In four weeks, at the same time you had ballot packets going out, ballots coming back in, and so things just got overlooked?

After initially thinking they were among the rejected ballots eventually discovered they were never even counted.?the ballots were discovered locked away in the courthouse basement where we were keeping everything because we have to keep everything in impound after an election?

Those ballots-- locked away in the basement-- an oversight clerk office says never should have happened.

And one that was only realized because of the audit.?i glad they were audited, i wish they could audit every county because theye really important to understand and find where the process kind of broke down?

So in efforts to prevent ballot discrepancies in the future will focus on a manual count system poll workers.?wel still have the same amount of employees but only say two employees, a democrat and a republican, will handle those tasks at a time, and they will only open 20 ballots, process 20 ballots at a time instead of say a big stack?

Mccarty says by having groups count fewer ballots at a time there will be less likelihood of them being overlooked in the future.

The audit is still ongoing and the report will be brought before the daviess county board of election during their september 8 meeting.

Reporting in owensboro news.