Malfunction delays Hasting results
The Grand Rapids Press. May 04, 2006
By Ben Cunningham
 
HASTINGS Barry County Clerk Debbie S. Smith hopes to have a widespread problem with new voting machines solved before the August primary, after workers at Tuesday's school board election had to hand-count votes into the wee hours Wednesday.

Machines in 15 of 16 townships and the city of Hastings malfunctioned Tuesday in their debut. Some are attributing it to programming mistakes that tallied votes improperly.

Hastings officials counted ballots from their four precincts four times Wednesday. The results: Jeff Guenther and Tammy Pennington won the district's school board race.
 
Candidates tried to take the wait in stride.

"It was a little odd because several people kept coming into my office offering congratulations, but I kept saying, 'Nope, not all results are in yet,'" said Pennington, executive director of the Barry County Commission on Aging.

Hastings Clerk Thomas Emery saw the problem immediately after receiving the roll from the precinct where he had voted.

"The person I voted for had zero votes, and I know how to fill in an oval," he said.

Emery voted for the candidate on the top line of the ballot. The fourth line of the ballot reserved for write-in candidates accumulated 90 votes from only 127 ballots cast at the precinct.

"I knew for certain there wouldn't be 90 write-ins," Emery said.

June Doster, the Johnstown Township clerk, noted a similar influx of erroneous write-in votes.

"We didn't have any write-ins," she said.

The new Diebold Accuvote machines, purchased with federal funds, arrived last month. Smith said the machines were programmed and delivered by a field representative. She has contacted Diebold, detailing the problems.

Yankee Springs Township was the only jurisdiction where voting machines functioned properly; those results were confirmed by a hand-count. Nonetheless, Yankee Springs Clerk Jan Lippert noted some ballot irregularities.

"They came out all mixed-up, sideways and crossways," she said.

Press writer Paul R. Kopenkoskey contributed to this story.