Clerk changes election vote totals (Wyo. primary last Tues.) [View All]

[TransitJohn]

By MATTHEW VAN DUSEN
Star-Tribune staff writer Saturday, August 21, 2004




The Natrona County clerk has changed Tuesday's primary election totals in several municipal races after noticing a glitch in new vote-counting software.

The error changes the order in which some candidates finished, but does not affect which candidates will advance to the general election. Only one candidate lost votes but five of the 10 municipal races in the county had changed totals.

Clerk Mary Ann Collins said she noticed on Thursday that the number of votes candidates in Evansville received seemed low. She checked the printout from the voting machine and the absentee ballots against the vote-computing software, called Unity, and saw the numbers were different for the Evansville races.

Collins determined the software problem only affected nonpartisan races after checking the voting machine printouts and the absentee votes against the Unity software report in several partisan races. There does not appear to be any pattern in the skewed vote totals.

On Friday, officials were sending voting machine memory packs and memory pack readers to Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems and Software, the company that designed and maintains Unity. The program is new and cost $70,000. She has told the company she wants on-site technical support during the general election Nov. 2.

"I'm not going to go into the general election and not be comfortable," Collins said.

The county Canvassing Board was satisfied with the revised election results and certified them.

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/08/21/news/casper/6c2e825b3f9e154187256ef70007adbb.txt