HOW WE SEE IT Tales From The Election Commission

The Benton County Election Commission has made the news a lot lately, and for various reasons - few of them good.

We begin with the chartered plane trip - or as we like to call it, the Benton County air strike - that commission chairman Bill Williams and election coordinator Amy Huston took to Omaha, Neb., on Oct. 9 to pick up a software package essential to next Tuesday’s election.

That trip cost $1,100, about $300 to $400 more than it costs to ship materials overnight, according to Williams. He claimed that the extra time that the plane trip bought for the commission was well worth it, because the commission needed time to test the voting machines ahead of the early voting period, which began Oct. 18.

Initially, Williams said that the trip was made necessary because of delays on the part of the vendor, Election Systems & Software. He said ES&S apparently was understaffed and struggling to meet deadlines.

That might be true, but Williams failed to mention that the Election Commission deserved at least some of the blame for the delay. We later learned that, on Oct. 4, the commission had notified ES&S that 17 ballots had to be changed because the commission had overlooked a write-in candidate for a constable post - a change that ES&S needed several days to complete.

It is reasonable to ask whether chartering a flight was really necessary when the commission could have either driven to Omaha or had the software shipped, both of which would have been cheaper options.

More frustrating, though, is that Williams was not as forthcoming about the commission’s role in the problem as he should have been. In a guest column he wrote for this newspaper last week in defense of the charter trip, he never acknowledged the commission’s mistake regarding the write-in candidate, and instead accused critics of offering an “uninformed view of our activities.” Hmm.

A few hundred dollars won’t break the Election Commission, but there are very few reasons, if any, that commission or county officials should be flying chartered planes on the taxpayer’s dime. The public is likely to perceive the commission as careless with its money - no matter how thrifty it might be the rest ofthe year.

On a different subject: We applaud the Election Commission for agreeing at Friday’s meeting to provide vote totals a few times during election night. Williams had previously indicated a preference not to release any results until the end of the night. Others, including fellow election commissioner E.J. Miller, had objected to Williams’ idea.

Our take is that the more updates are provided, the more transparent the vote-counting is to the public.

That’s a good thing. Also, voters and candidates like to know the results as they arrive. Benton County has provided periodic updates before, and we see no good reason to discontinue this practice.

Finally, during last week’s Election Commission meeting, commissioner Miller suggested that Williams resign his post. Williams declined the opportunity.

Though Williams has made some controversial decisions, it is foolish to suggest that the commission chairman resign just days before a major election.

Stability is preferred at such a crucial moment.

Let’s hope the three commissioners can work together at least long enough to make it through this election successfully. That’s the most important thing right now.

If they still want to argue about who should or should not be on the commission, they’ll have time for that later.