the Secretary of State
where the problem is.”
Barton said that eight absentee ballots before the problem was discovered.
Once the issue was discovered,
the Secretary of State
was contacted.
“We received a call from Josh Bridges at the Secretary of State’s Office about 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon confirming that there was indeed a problem with our ballot and the 2.1 race,” said Barton.
The district lines were redrawn in 2011 following the 2010 census.
“We’re looking into it,” said Carlson, “but the main issue right now is that our ballot software will have to be corrected. ES& S will have to re-burn all the media for our machines.”
The county uses ES& S (Election Systems & Service) for all elections. The correction will cost about $3,000.
“We’ll get a partial reimbursement from the state,” said Carlson, “but we’ll be responsible for the rest, which will probably include
a rush order charge.”
The commission put a temporary hold on sending out any more absentee ballots until the corrections are made. The board also made plans to re-send ballots to anyone who turns in a ballot with the errant race on it.
“The important thing is that we caught it,” said Carlson. “It’s unfortunate that it happened, but at least we found out about it before the actual (March 1) election.”
