Sutherland certified as winner
By Jeff Gallatin
Bay Village
Published Nov. 25, 2009

Even as Cuyahoga County Board of Elections officials yesterday certified that incumbent Debbie Sutherland was the winner in the Nov. 3 Bay Village mayoral election, challenger Jim Scott said he would continue to look into alleged election law violations as well as seek a recount.

BOE officials yesterday said after they counted 120 provisional ballots and 54 absentee ballots, Sutherland remained the winner with 3,509 votes to Scott’s 3,440, or a margin of 69 votes. When the counting began, Sutherland, who won her third full term with the victory, held a 78-vote margin over Scott.

Sutherland said she and the city are ready to move forward and work on city business again.

“It’s time to move on,” she said. “They’ve counted the provisional and absentee ballots, and it didn’t change the election outcome. Nor was it enough to trigger an automatic recount.”

When it was noted that Scott said he will seek a recount anyway, Sutherland said, “That’s his right, but he will have to pay for it.”

An automatic recount is triggered when a candidate’s margin of victory over another is less than one half of one percent. If a candidate seeks a recount that does not fall within that guideline, the board of elections will calculate the cost of the recount, depending on the expenses and the number of precincts. The state stipulates that the cost be no less than $5 nor no more than $55 per precinct.

Scott, who attended the board of elections meeting where the results were certified, reiterated his intention to seek the recount, but also said he has hired a professional investigator to look into the allegations of pre-election irregularities. Scott declined to identify the investigator, saying that person does not wish to be identified in the news media. He said the irregularities could have affected the close election.

“They may constitute election law violations, which may have affected the election’s outcome,” Scott said. “I’m shocked that something like this would happen in Bay Village. With a 69-vote margin, it’s easy to see that if about 100 phone calls were made spreading misinformation that I’m a Democrat, it could have turned the election.”

Scott said the investigation will center on reliable and consistent reports and focuses on the dissemination of fraudulent information by a call-center style telephone polling operation beginning on Sunday, Oct. 25, or just days before the Nov. 3 election.

“The unidentified pre-election operation is known to have operated from an unlisted phone number,” he said. “Reliable reports indicate that registered Republican voters received calls specifically identifying Debbie Sutherland as the Republican candidate for mayor and Jim Scott as the Democratic candidate.”

Scott said that’s a clear misrepresentation of who he is, noting he is a long-standing and active registered Republican.

“Because Bay Village has nonpartisan elections, the call center’s fraudulent misrepresentation of my political affiliation likely distorted the election results,” Scott said. “Since nothing threatens the integrity of democracy’s electoral process more than fraudulent misinformation and deliberate voter deception, the Jim Scott for Mayor campaign will continue to work to identify the perpetrators of this fraudulent activity.”

Scott said when the investigation is complete, the results will be provided to the proper authorities. He said his campaign did not contact Bay City Police or outside agencies such as the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office or state or county election officials by design.

“We want to build up sufficient information to build up a case if there is one and then turn it over to the authorities,” Scott said.

Bay Village Detective Lt. Mark Spaetzel said his department has not received any complaints of any alleged election violations from Scott, his campaign or any citizen or group.

“We haven’t heard anything like that,” he said.

Ryan Miday, spokesman for the county prosecutor’s office, expressed a similar reaction.

Scott said citizens with information about these pre-election irregularities or similar factual misrepresentations should contact Scott at jimscottinbay@aol.com or (440) 892-0685, again noting the investigator did not want to be identified at this point.

“We’d like to get this over as soon as possible,” Scott said. “But, it could take several weeks.”

Sutherland reiterated the campaign is over and that she has no idea who might have made the phone calls.

“All I know is the election was Nov. 3 and we just certified the other ballots,” she said. “I’m meeting with other people and officials because we have work to do. The calls could be anyone. It could be someone who’s upset with Scott. It could be a Democrat. But I don’t know who it is.”