Lucas County voters turned away at the polls

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

LONG LINE BLACKWELL RIDES AGAIN!!!

LUCAS COUNTY VOTERS

TURNED AWAY AT THE POLLS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PHONE: 614-221-6563
Contact: Brian Rothenberg, Communication Director November 8, 2005

COLUMBUS- The following statement was released by Ohio Democratic Party Communications Director Brian Rothenberg concerning voter problems in Lucas County, Ohio (See Attached Toledo Blade online bulletin below.)

“Once again, Ken Blackwell, will point his finger at others in what has become a sad annual event in Blackwell's tenure over Ohio voting,” said Brian Rothenberg, Communications Director of the Ohio Democratic Party.

“Where does the buck stop with Ken Blackwell,” said Rothenberg. “It is his responsibility to make sure elections are carried out, poll workers are trained, and equipment is set up and working.”

“Why would Ken Blackwell even think he deserves a promotion to higher office if he can’t get the simple mechanics of Election Day running smoothly,” Rothenberg added. “Ken Blackwell’s Katrina style finger-pointing at others over what went wrong in Toledo this morning is yet another part of his sad legacy of long lines, partisanship in the Secretary of State’s office, and lack of accountability for the problems created under his watch.”

FROM THE TOLEDO BLADE (toledoblade.com)

November 8, 2005 11:26 a.m.

Voting so far on new touch-screen machines has not been quite as seamless as local board of elections officials had hoped.

Lucas County Board of Elections director Jill Kelly said some voters left the precincts this morning without voting because the machines were not up and running. She urged people who had problems to return and cast their ballots.

“The places where there were problems have been resolved,” she said. “It really wasn’t a technology problem, it was a people problem.”

Ms. Kelly said that several of the county’s 2,000 trained poll workers had to be talked through some problems during the morning.

Poll workers at the Sylvania Senior Center could not find the machine’s memory cards and at the Toledo Board of Education building the voting machines could not be found. Those issues were resolved, Ms. Kelly said. And those coming to vote where machines were not yet up and running were given provisional ballots.

She denied reports that voters in some precincts were given the wrong ballot issues to consider. She added that as of about 9 a.m., the calls from the 495 precincts died down significantly.

Wood County residents in some precincts arrived at 6:30 a.m. only to find that the machines were not yet up and running, said elections director Terry Burton. But all precincts had at least one machine up by 6:40 a.m. and all machines in the majority of the county were available for voters by about 7:30 a.m., he said.

Mr. Burton said the problems were attributable to human error rather than to malfunctions in the machines.