An election turnout of 131% tipped off the election officials that the optical scanners had been adding phantom votes to the totals. Officials concluded that ballots had been counted twice and speculated that some ballots had been fed through machine more than once.*

"Clyde had 131 percent voting," Tuckerman said. "That's not possible. I knew there was something amiss."

After reviewing the computer discs used to store precinct tallies, officials came to the conclusion that some ballots in nine precincts were counted twice.

The mistake may have occurred when counted ballots were stacked with those waiting to be counted, [Barb] Tuckerman [director of the Sandusky County Board of Elections] said.

... The double counting creates a situation that can't be solved until questions are answered.