Published: May 16, 2008 03:01 pm      

Counting confusion... Tech, poll errors snarl

PRINCETON — Mercer County voters expecting quick election returns Tuesday were quickly disappointed as technical difficulties and human error sent most citizens to bed wondering who won a wide range of races.

The polls in the county’s 61 precincts closed at 7:30 p.m., and the going was slow from the beginning. It was almost two hours before workers from County Clerk Rudolph Jennings’ office and Mercer County Sheriff’s Sgt. G.W. Woods distributed the first round of the highly-anticipated returns, at approximately 9:20 p.m.

Office hopefuls and supporters swarmed the printouts still warm from the copier, while a long line of harried poll workers stretched the span of the courthouse’s bottom floor and spilled onto the sidewalk, anxiously awaiting completion of their last Election Day duties.

It was there that Jennings said the delays began.

Although Mercer County voters cast their ballots electronically, each voter received a paper ballot statement, or a ballot stub, upon checking in with the poll workers. Jennings said workers were supposed to count the stubs as the ballots were cast, tabulate the total number of voters at the precinct and complete some paperwork before arriving at the courthouse. The paper trail served as a checks-and-balance system to ensure the right number of ballots were contained on the personal electronic ballot (PEB) cartridges poll workers turned in, he explained.

Some precinct workers, however, failed to tally the number of votes and were forced to step out of line, quickly count their ballot statements and compare their numbers with those on the PEB devices, a process that made their day longer and delayed the vote-tabulation process.

“Let’s hope that they listen to me next time,” Jennings said early Wednesday morning, reviewing the issues that led to the long night.

Upstairs, where Judge Derek Swope’s circuit courtroom had been turned into the vote-tabulation center, technology didn’t quite do the trick either.

After six precincts were turned in and counted, a technical problem with a PEB locked up the tabulation center and forced election workers to announce the previous returns would not stand. Jennings said officials in the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office had advised them to start again at the very beginning.

“What’s the hold-up? We’re using machines when we’re used to counting in our heads,” Jennings said, sharing his frustrations with the computerized process.

At approximately 10:10 p.m., the counting began again.

Media representatives rushed to find stories when there were few numbers to report, political observers grew weary amid the wait, and candidates were forced to endure a longer day than most anticipated.

“Tonight, this has been harder than the whole campaign,” Democrat magistrate hopeful Charlie Poe said.

Once counting resumed, though, the results came relatively quickly, with 20 precincts tallied at 10:38 p.m., and 60 completed by 12:18 a.m. Wednesday.

There was one more glitch in the system, with one precinct left to count.

The last results were counted by 12:38 a.m., but problems with the tabulation machine prohibited the counting of 17 absentee ballots. Jennings said they would be calculated during a vote canvass slated to begin Friday or Monday, according to Mercer County Commission President Joe Coburn.

Secretary of State Betty Ireland announced Wednesday voter turnout hit approximately 40 percent statewide, a statistic that closely mirrored Mercer results. According to reports released by Jennings’ office, 38.48 percent of Mercer County’s registered voters turned out to cast the 13,444 ballots returned this election. While a lack of contested races led only 28.40 percent of Mercer County’s Republicans to the polls, more than half of the county’s Democrats voted, registering a turnout of 52.51 percent.

The people in the polls Tuesday said they saw bigger crowds than they could remember in recent history.

Thomas Evans worked the polls at Spanishburg School, where he said a steady stream of voters continued all day long.

“At one time, we had a back-up about six or seven deep, but it was mostly just steady,” he said.

Michael Canterbury manned the polls at Mercer County Technical Education Center, where he said he knew turnout was high due to the voting lines. He said additional electronic voting machines would have been handy.

“They work pretty fast. The problem was, we didn’t have enough of them,” he said.

Lloyd Goins, 86, of Princeton, was one of those voters who stood in line at the technical education center. Proud of his voting record, Goins declared he hasn’t missed an election since he returned stateside in 1945, after completing his service in World War II.

“It was the most crowded I’ve ever seen. It was pretty full,” Goins said.

He gave the electronic voting machines mixed reviews though, citing a difficulty reading the screens and understanding the directions.

“If you hadn’t been educated to use the machines, you just didn’t know what to do,” he said.

Even with the minor voting complications, Goins said he was happy he had the chance to cast a ballot.

“It’s my duty to do it. They give me the privilege to do it, and I figured I ought to do it,” he said. “The way I see it, you don’t have no right to talk about how things are going if you don’t at least try to change them.”

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.