Reply #4: AR: Some Counties Reporting Runoff Troubles [View All]

Some Counties Reporting Runoff Troubles
Wednesday June 14, 2006 12:56am

Little Rock (AP) - Voting in Tuesday's runoffs went smoothly in most Arkansas counties, although there were some glitches. Ten counties shunned electronic machines in favor of paper ballots,another county gave up on the electronic machines by mid-afternoon,and another county suspended ballot counting when a scanner wouldn't work.

Natasha Naragon of the secretary of state's office said Stone County, which didn't use electronic machines in the May 23rd primary, tried to start the day by using the machines provided by vendor Election Systems and Software. Naragon said that, among other problems, election workers were unable to access the electronic ballot using the touch-screen machines.

Cross, Desha, Garland, Jefferson, Lonoke, Phillips, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, Searcy and Stone counties opted not to use the electronic machines. Their decisions followed a problem-plagued primary that led to late nights and recounts.

Several of the counties, including Lonoke and Phillips, took days to tabulate results from the primary. Naragon said Saline County officials had trouble counting votes after the polls closed. She said an optical scanner that reads ballots wasn't working properly, and after attempts to fix the problem were unsuccessful, county officials went home for the night. Naragon said Saline County's officials planned to resume their count around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0606/336010.html