Ballot Count Nearly Completed

Washington County Provides Help To Benton County

Sharon Rose with the Benton County Election Commission pulls a cart Thursday of Benton County paper ballots into Washington County’s Quorum Court Room where Lynn Hodge, Washington County Election Commission worker, waits to help. After testing several machines they found a Washington County machine that could count the paper ballots the Benton County machines could not.

Sharon Rose with the Benton County Election Commission pulls a cart Thursday of Benton County paper ballots into Washington County’s Quorum Court Room where Lynn Hodge, Washington County Election Commission worker, waits to help. After testing several machines they found a Washington County machine that could count the paper ballots the Benton County machines could not.

Friday, November 9, 2012

— Benton County election officials counted 4,364 paper ballots from Tuesday’s general election in about six hours Thursday, but 500-800 more remain to be counted by hand.

Web Watch

Updated Vote Totals

Thursday’s updated vote totals can be viewed at www.nwaonline.com/documents. Final results will not be available until Nov. 16, when overseas ballots are due. The Benton County Election Commission will certify the final results after those ballots are counted and added to the totals.

The vote tally was halted early Wednesday when problems developed with the machines used to read paper ballots. After a service technician was unable to get the county’s ballot counting machines working Thursday morning, election officials packed up the paper ballots remaining uncounted from election day and took them to the Washington County Courthouse where they made use of Washington County’s equipment to continue the count.

Kim Dennison, county election coordinator, said there is no readily apparent reason for the inability of the voting machines to recognize and count the remaining ballots.

“It’s not per precinct,” she said. “It’s not per ballot split. It’s not all ballots that ES&S printed and it’s not all ballots we printed. Right now, it’s beyond us.”

Dennison said she will resume the counting of the remaining ballots this morning. She said she hopes to have a completed, preliminary count by noon.

Dennison said while Benton County’s voting machines seem to be working, there’s no reason to think they would read the ballots rejected by the machines in Washington County.

“We’re just going to count them by hand,” she said. “If they wouldn’t go through theirs down there, they’re not going to go through ours.”

Mark Moore of Pea Ridge, a candidate for the District 95 seat in the state House of Representatives, was unhappy with the long lines at the polling places on election day and the delay in counting the votes.

“I’m not saying it would have made a difference in this race, but it could have made a difference and someday it will make a difference in somebody’s race,” said Moore, the independent opponent of Sue Scott in the District 95 state Representative race. Pea Ridge experienced some of the worst election night problems. Moore, his family and his hometown supporters experienced those problems directly.

“My wife waited four hours to vote,” Moore said. “I was able to watch the polling place and come in when the lines were shortest. It still took me two hours and 40 minutes to vote. People were still voting here at 10 minutes to midnight.”

“Voting machines have lobbyists. Paper ballots don’t,” Moore said. “Big companies make voting machines while any print shop can make a ballot. So the push is on for voting machines. So if voting machines are so great, can anyone explain to me why the Pea Ridge grocery story can give you a paper receipt you can keep for food, but you can’t get the same thing for how you voted?”

“If I was not a candidate, I’d still be as outraged as any citizen of Pea Ridge,” Moore said. “We begged for more voting machines and got none. We begged for more paper ballots and got 25. Polling places in Bella Vista got more machines than all of Pea Ridge, and more of the people there vote early. So they had more machines for fewer people. Then there’s the fact that major population centers get places to early vote, but they don’t even put a polling place in smaller communities on a rotating basis. The bias toward bigger cities is made worse.”

Vivian Michaels, chairman of the Democratic Party of Benton County, said the problems with the ballots highlights a choice the county has to make. She said Benton County should either commit to buying more electronic voting machines or rely more heavily on paper ballots and use the voting machines as a backup system.

“It’s essentially a problem of money,” Michaels said.

Michaels said she was impressed with the early voting operation the county put on for this year’s general election and suggested the state might consider expanding the early voting period and adopting newer technology allowing people to vote online or by email.

“In Oregon they can vote by computer,” Michaels said. “If you have the proper software there’s no way a person can vote twice, the computer will spit it out.”

Michaels said she’s satisfied John Brown Jr., Election Commission chairman, and Robbyn Tumey, the party’s present representatives on the commission, are doing their jobs. She said Brown has indicated a willingness to stay on but Tumey hasn’t yet decided. Michaels said the party’s Central Committee will begin looking at filling the two spots on the commission soon.

“Robbyn has said she will make her decision after the election,” Michaels said. “She also is running a construction company so she may not have the time for that.”

Benton County Justice of the Peace Tom Allen said Tuesday’s election may have been a one-time event, with a presidential election, the Benton County wet-dry issue and statewide ballot initiatives on medical marijuana and a sales tax increase for highways, county roads and city streets combining to bring a larger than usual number of voters to the polls.

“I don’t think we’ll ever have another wet-dry vote,” Allen said. “There were a lot of things on the ballots that brought people out to vote. That being said, voting is a top priority of county government. You’ve got to have an opportunity to vote and it’s got to be done efficiently.”

Allen said the county should consider its options and decide how to proceed soon, possibly as part of the 2013 budget process, which is under way. He said he would favor an expansion of the early voting period, but beyond that couldn’t say whether the county should lean toward buying more electronic voting machines or relying on paper ballots.

“We definitely need to talk about it,” Allen said. “We probably need to talk about it before this budget process is done. I think voting is one of the most important functions of county government. I personally think it’s more important than roads.”