How is this data "relational"?

Each precinct has 3 numbers to submit for each candidate, that's not a big task for one person, and none of those precinct's candidates numbers are related to anything else in the db except the grand total of all precincts numbers and that's a one way relationship. The grand totals never change any of the data they're derived from.

If you want to give each candidate's precinct representative access to the precinct's db in CouchDB than you just limit their access to one file for their specific candidate in a db for their specific precinct, so by design it's purposely not related to any other candidate or precinct.

That's why CouchDB is a good choice for this kind of app.