Otto hits her GOP opponents on math

Posted at 1:29 PM on February 4, 2010 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Campaign 2010

State Auditor Rebecca Otto, a Democrat, is criticizing two of her GOP opponents over something pretty important to the job - math.

In a news release, Otto's campaign said two of the four GOP candidates for State Auditor made mistakes on their campaign finance reports:

Candidates Pat Anderson and Randy Gilbert have filed reports that don't add up.

Pat Anderson's gubernatorial report misstates her ending cash balance.
The reporting form instructs candidates to subtract the total
campaign expenses of $26,420.99 from total receipts of $29,659.00.
Pat Anderson says that number is $3,584.66, but actually doing the
math gives a different number: $3,238.01.

Randy Gilbert's state auditor report misstates his total expenditures,
saying that $6,699.08 plus $30 equals $6,713.08. The correct answer
is $6,729.08.

The State Auditor is responsible for oveseeing roughly $20 billion in spending by local units of government.

Anderson served as State Auditor between 2003 and 2007. Otto defeated her in the 2006 election.

I'm seeking comments from Anderson and Gilbert and will post one when I get it.

Update: Randy Gilbert sent along this statement:

"Our amendment has already been filed. We did not have the software this year, so we completed our forms on excel. This was a simple transferring error."

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