Voting Troubles Plague Delaware, Marion Counties
TheIndyChannel.com  07 November 2006

MUNCIE, Ind. Voters in Delaware County were not able to cast their votes early Tuesday morning because of problems at all of the county's precincts.

County clerk Karen Wenger told 6News that the company who provides the voting machines, MicroVote, did not have the machines programmed properly that would allow for turning them on correctly Tuesday morning.

Machines were being turned on one-by-one under the direction of an inspector over the phone at each precinct in the county.

The county clerk said a court order will be sought that allows the polls to remain open until at least 7 p.m. in that county.

Wenger said she did not know what caused the problem that affected 225 machines in the east-central Indiana county.

"We haven't done anything wrong here. The poll workers haven't done anything wrong," she said.

In Marion County, Indiana's largest, paper ballots had to be used in more than 100 of the 914 precincts where touch-screen machines were not working. The problem is that poll workers have forgotten how to start and run the machines, said Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler.

It could take most of the day to fix everything, but voting should not be interrupted as the paper ballots are being used, Sadler said.

"The problems are known and are in the process of being fixed," she said.

Sadler also said that some inspectors were not showing up as scheduled, forcing her to find last-minute substitutes