921 Primary Ballots Tossed in Mail Flub in Lucas County OH

[mod mom]

LUCAS COUNTY ABSENTEE VOTING
921 primary votes tossed in mail flub
Instructions on folding ballot confusing to some
By TOM TROY
BLADE POLITICS WRITER

Lucas County elections officials urged voters before the March 4 primary election to vote by absentee ballot to lessen waits at the polls on election day, but The Blade has learned that hundreds of those ballots were not counted because of mistakes made by voters and because the elections board sent voters faulty ballot envelopes.

The Lucas County Board of Elections rejected 921 ballots because of a mistake in which voters mailed back the ballot with the identification envelope rather than inside the identification envelope. Both ballot and identification envelope went inside a second, larger, prepaid, preaddressed envelope.

The problem? Voter confusion about whether they should fold their ballots so they would fit in the identification envelopes the board of elections sent to voters. The envelopes were a quarter of an inch smaller than the ballots.
Officials at the Lucas County Board of Elections said they are "heartsick" at the large number of uncounted ballots.

But, they said, they are prohibited by state law from counting the absentee ballots that are mailed back outside their identification envelopes despite the voters' clear intent.

The situation, which occurred after a mix-up this year in which the board was forced to reprint and remail thousands of Democratic absentee ballots after the first version was found to be defective, caused disappointment among voters who learned last week from The Blade about the fate of their ballots.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20080511&Category=NEWS33&ArtNo=805110314&SectionCat=&Template=printart

[bow-tie]

1. Ohio is clearly

the new "Florida", esp. 2004.

[kster]

2. K&R.nt