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Fixed Computer Glitch Turns Losing Republican Into Winner In Oakland County

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A computer glitch was discovered and fixed and that turned a losing Republican into a winner in a stunning reversal of fortune.

Even more surprising and hopefully an example to the rest of us as we await the results from the presidential election it was a bipartisan solution.

A Republican city clerk didn’t notice made the mistake of wrongly gave the victory to the Democrat challenger.

But it was the Democratic county clerk’s office that found the error and alerted the GOP city clerk who ran the numbers again and gave the win to the GOP candidate.

“I’m very grateful to the officials who caught the error, but we need to ensure that we catch these issues, or prevent them entirely,” Oakland County Commissioner Adam Kochenderfer said.

“People are acting like fixing our elections is a partisan thing when it shouldn’t be partisan,” he added. “We do have a very, very good clerk in Rochester Hills.”

Oakland County Director of Elections Joe Rozell said the error stemmed from a computer issue:

“A computer issue in Rochester Hills caused them to send us results for seven precincts as both precinct votes and absentee votes. They should only have been sent to us as absentee votes,” Rozell said.

“We noticed the local clerk’s mistake on Thursday and corrected it. The county canvass process works, and the correct results are now on our website,” Rozell said.

From The Detroit Free Press:

A computer error led election officials in Oakland County to hand an upset victory Wednesday to a Democrat, only to switch the win back to an incumbent Republican a day later.

In Oakland County’s 15th county commission District — representing Rochester and Rochester Hills — the initial count gave a 104-vote margin to the Democrat, Melanie Hartman, amounting to a razor-thin majority of 50.08%.

That stunned the incumbent, Adam Kochenderfer, giving him a sure sense that he’d lost in a district long deemed a Republican stronghold.

“I thought that was that,” Kochenderfer said. “Those were the results, and I said I would not seek a recount.”

But what a difference a day makes – in weather, love, and the 15th District election for Oakland County commissioner. On Thursday, Kochenderfer was stunned again, this time by a call from Oakland County’s director of elections, flipping the outcome to him.

“Apparently, there was a technical glitch in Rochester Hills. And so, I actually ended up winning by a little over 1,100 votes,” said a chuckling Kochenderfer. The margin was 1,127 votes, to be exact. That gave him a 51.67% share of the total (with 48.23% going to his opponent, Hartman).

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