Madison County supervisors read 2024 general election canvas; recount adds one South Precinct vote

Madison County supervisors received an administrative recount notice and heard a full read of the county'wide canvass for the 2024 general election during their meeting.

Unidentified Speaker 3, an election official, read a letter "to formally inform you of the results of the administrative recounts conducted for the Walnut, Ohio and South Precincts," saying the Walnut precinct's recount matched the original tally and that the South Precinct had one additional vote the absentee team recommended be counted. "Therefore, the official count for the South Precinct should reflect the administrative recount numbers," the official said.

The official reported the county ended the election with 10,117 ballots counted (79.84% of registered voters) and said 241 new county registrations were processed before or during the election: 127 Republican, 22 Democrat, two Libertarian and 90 no-party registrations. "Seventy-eight of those 241 were during absentee voting, and 163 of them were done on actual election day," the official said.

The canvass reading then enumerated vote totals across federal, state, judicial and local races as they appear in the official canvass documents. Among the entries read aloud were ticket and candidate tallies (transcribed here as read by the election official): a ticket listed in the transcript as "Kamala Harris Tim Walz" 3,008 votes; "Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance" 6,864 votes; scatterings and totals were read to complete the countywide count. The official also read results for U.S. House District 3, state legislative contests, multiple judicial races, and two constitutional amendments (Amendment 1: Yes 6,917, No 2,050; Amendment 2: Yes 7,376, No 1,472).

County-level races were read and nominees declared where the canvass produced a clear plurality: County Board of Supervisors District 2, Jessica Hobbs (2,038 votes, scattering 184); auditor (Terry L. Kaczynski 5,458; Emily Hoffelmeier 3,587); County Sheriff Jason Barnes (8,757); Aaron Hardesty for county attorney to fill a vacancy (7,778, scattering 77). Township trustees, hospital trustee tallies and agricultural extension counselor totals were read and nominees declared "duly nominated" in sequence.

The supervisors approved the meeting agenda at the start of the session on a motion identified in the record as "Motion by Diane," seconded by Heather, and carried by voice vote. The meeting then proceeded with the canvass reading; there was no separate recorded roll-call vote on the canvass itself.

Notably, the transcript contains an internal inconsistency in summed vote totals: earlier in the reading the official said the county "ended the election with 10,117 ballots counted," while later a line reads a county total of 10,028 when enumerating scatterings and subtotals. The canvass as read to the board is presented here using the language and figures the election official read during the session; any numerical discrepancies appear in the recorded reading and were not resolved on the record during this meeting.

Action taken: the board received and filed the administrative recount notice and the canvass was read aloud; where the canvass declared nominees, those candidates were read as "duly nominated." The supervisors did not take further public action on the canvass during this meeting.

The canvass reading concluded with public-measure tallies and the statement "That was it." No additional votes or motions on canvass certification are recorded in the transcript.