Flag polling challenged

Dear Editor:

This letter is to protest the Morgan County County Flag Contest election results. There were many irregularities with the online poll by the Morgan County Commissioners. Among the irregularities were:
1. Between June 3 and June 23, there were 291 votes or 16 votes per day.
2. Between June 23 and July 7, there were four votes or less than one vote per day.
3. Between July 7 and July 14, there were about 200 votes or about 25 votes per day.

The polling software was not working properly for 14 days between June 23 and July 7. I tested this on July 7 by asking four friends to vote for Flag #1. Only one vote registered. The other three votes were not counted.
The software was corrected after the error was pointed out, but over the two weeks that the software wasn’t working properly, approximately 300 voters were disenfranchised.

There were also episodes of suspicious mass voting for Flag #2. At 9 a.m. on June 10 with 100 votes in, the percentage of votes for the three flags were 42%-36%-22%. At 7 p.m. on June 15, the percentages were 32%-48%-18% with 200 votes in. In five days, 60 votes were made for Flag #2 and 22 for Flag #1. Most of the mass voting for Flag #2 occurred on June 11 and moved that flag into the lead. There was a 44-4 vote advantage for Flag #2 over those 24 hours.

On Tuesday morning, July 12, Flag #1 was again in the lead by 44%-41%. That evening, Flag #2 took the lead. Only 31 votes were recorded over 12 hours that day and nearly all of them were for Flag #2. There may have been another mass voting episode for Flag #2 on July 14. These mass voting behaviors are statistically unlikely to be due to chance.

The Morgan County Flag Contest poll was unfair and should be redone, particularly due to the fact that there was a tie and due to the disenfranchisement of about 300 voters. It’s customary to have runoff elections in such cases. It only takes 7 to 10 days to produce a custom flag so there is plenty of time.

Finally, Flag #2 has the wrong dimensions for a flag, which are typically 3 x 5. Flag #2 is 8.5 x 11 and will be expensive to manufacture. Since Flag #2 is the wrong shape, it should be disqualified.

Douglas Hoyt
Berkeley Springs
Editor’s note: Douglas Hoyt designed Flag #1.