Vote machine error brings recount in Franklin County

  
By John Strauss   Indianapolis Star
November 12, 2004
 

A programming error discovered in voting machines has triggered a recount of the Nov. 2 election results in Franklin County in southeastern Indiana.

A Democratic official, whose party was shortchanged in the mistake, said the only change in the results might come in a County Council race. State officials are investigating.

"The Indiana Election Division is aware of the problem," said Kate Shepherd, spokeswoman for the agency. "We are awaiting more information from the county and the vendor about what exactly happened."

The error caused votes for a straight Democratic ticket in Franklin County ing all Democratic candidates to credit Libertarian candidates instead.

The mistake was in the programming of optical-scan voting machines sold by Fidlar Election Co., Rock Island, Ill. John Kruszynski, the company's director of elections, said only Franklin County was affected.

"It was just one configuration setting," he said.

Kruszynski did not know how many votes were miscounted.

The company's optical-scan machines are also used in Benton, Elkhart, Fulton, LaGrange, Newton, Ripley, Scott, Steuben and Switzerland counties, according to the Indiana Election Division. Kruszynski said there were no programming mistakes with the company's machines elsewhere in Indiana, or in the half-dozen other states where Fidlar has contracts.

Jim Sauerland, the Democratic chairman in Franklin County, about 30 miles northwest of Cincinnati, discovered the mistake Monday while checking election results. Sauerland said he hadn't checked earlier because he was depressed by the party's poor showing in the elections.

He said the only race that could be affected is for an at-large seat on the County Council.

Franklin County has previously used punch cards, and this was the first election in which optical-scan equipment was used, Sauerland said.

"I really hate to see this problem crop up because people were so nervous about changing anyway," he said.

Marion County used optical-scan equipment sold by another company. In most of those systems, voters mark a paper ballot that is then scanned by a computer, which tabulates the votes. Doris Anne Sadler, the Marion County clerk, has said she favors optical-scan equipment because if there is a question about the computer tabulation, the paper ballots themselves can be recounted.

Ripley, Scott and Switzerland counties are in the 9th Congressional District, which had the state's closest congressional race this year. Democratic Rep. Baron Hill lost to Republican challenger Mike Sodrel by just 1,430 votes.

But the programming error, even if it had been made in the three counties, would not have been enough to deny Sodrel the election, because the Libertarian count totaled just 309 votes in those counties.

Franklin County is in the 6th Congressional District, where Republican Mike Pence won re-election over Democratic challenger Mel Fox by more than 98,000 votes.

Franklin County had only 740 Libertarian votes, so that if Fox got them all in a recount, she would still be far short of winning.