Official Oakland County election results make School Board President Ingrid Day one vote "winner" over Howard Baron. Both will serve on School Board.

Unofficial Election night totals (Click on chart  to make bigger)

Election results made available on Election Night are described as "unofficial" meaning they have not as yet been certified. The final election results are now available and the results of the Bloomfield Hills School Board Election for the six year term have been revised ever so slightly. On election night the unofficial  results had  Candidate Howard Barron and School Board president Ingrid Day finishing in an incredible 10,755 vote tie .

Now the official results are published and the difference is one vote  in the actual outcome with Ingrid Day now the top vote getter with 10755 and Howard Barron the runner up with 17054. One vote was also  removed from third place finisher W.F. Moigis. The final vote total for this election was revised downward from 27,072 to 27070.

The vote total is the result of  each voter having the opportunity to cast two votes. This was possible because two seats in this election were being contested. A poor man's count of the number of  voters voting can be had by dividing 27070 by 2.   That assumes that every candidate voted for two candidates. Some may have only selected on candidate. Instructions on the Ballot said   to vote for no more than 2. Since  the vote total is an even number on cam assume that the single candidate voters evened out.

If you  are curious as to how something like this happened and how the error was detected, it is really quite simple  On election night at  Precinct 1  (City Hall) in the City of Bloomfield Hills  a vote counting machine malfunctioned during the count. One imagines  something like a ballot going in and then popping out before going through. Was that one vote or two ?. City Clerk Amy Burton and her election staff  caught it immediately and reported the malfunction to the county.  The unofficial results which were off by two votes were published on election night because they did not  effect the over all outcome.The  next day all ballots were re-entered in a functioning machine which provided the now official results. 

School Board Member elect Howard Baron noticed the revised results on the County web site over the holiday weekend and sent a playful  congratulatory  e-mail to Ingrid Day  who responded in kind.

.Of 35 precincts reporting 17 gave the  majority of their votes  to Howard Baron. The other 17 chose Ingrid Day. The remaining precinct  Bloomfield Township 25 (Central Fire Station) split their vote 225 to Baron and 225 to Day.

Amy Burton in her the first two years as City Clerk for the City of Bloomfield Hills counted and recounted two City Commission elections decided by a single vote.

One vote can and often does make a difference. Even in elections where the voter has two votes to give.. 

Official and Final Election Results. (Click chart to make bigger.)

For the complete precinct by precinct Bloomfield Hills School Board  6 year term results please scroll down to next Blog Post.