GOP's paper ballots will only appear in March voting
By BRENDA SOMMER bsommer@leader-news.com

The Wharton County Republican Party may have decided to revert to paper ballots for its upcoming primary election, but won't be able to use them during early voting.

Wharton County Election Administrator Judy Owens, who was out of town last week when the party announced its decision, said the Republicans' decision has no effect on early voting or other elections.

"Basically, the primaries are run by the parties, and they can choose to contract with me, or choose not to," Owens said. "They run the election the way they want on Election Day, but I run the early voting, which will be iVotronics (all-electronic voting machines) only. So that's not going to change.

"It won't change for the early voting in the run-off, or in the May elections or the November elections. It's just affecting the way Republicans run Election Day for the primary and run-off."

Spooked by one man's problem with an electronic voting machine last month, the Wharton County Republican Party took a second look at the county's paperless voting machines and decided to revert to paper ballots for its upcoming primary election.

While trying to complete his ballot during the Nov. 6 Texas Amendment election, Boling resident Jim Welch said that when he was voting on Amendment 11, the machine failed to record his vote and instead changed his vote on Amendment 8.

Owens confirmed Welch's problem occurred, and said the situation was corrected without compromising the election. Welch was given the opportunity to start a new ballot and declined, then presented his concerns to the county commissioner's court, which owns the voting machines.

Debra Medina, chairwoman of the county's Republican Party, said last week Welch's experience raised too many red flags.

"When I asked why that happened, (Owens) said, 'I don't know, but I'm sure it didn't happen on another machine,'" Medina said. "I don't mean to be a skeptic, but how do you know it didn't happen on any other machine?"

Medina presented her concerns to the county Republican executive committee, which decided last Tuesday night to use paper ballots during the March 4 party primary, which Medina estimates will draw about 3,000 voters to 13 consolidated polling sites.

Until this February, the county used the Automark electronic voting machine, which accommodates a paper ballot, and a few of the more recently designed iVotronics, which don't allow paper ballots. Owens asked county commissioners to buy 60 iVotronic machines to replace its Automarks in February. Federal funding through the Help America Vote Act, coupled with the sale of the older machines, covered the costs. Commissioners court - by a 3-1 vote - approved purchasing the iVotronics and adopted them as the county's official election system.

Owens said she hasn't had a chance to speak with Medina since Owens returned from her conference, so isn't sure what the party's plans are for Election Day.

"She hasn't communicated with me specifically on how her decision was, so I still don't know what that entails, what part she wants me to handle now that they've decided to go with optical scan ballots, which still have to be processed through our tabulator, which still has to be programmed through ES&S," Owens said.

"It's up to the way she wants to run her election day results, but I don't think they'll go with hand-counting, which requires four people, on each site. If they wait to come here, it will be hours before results are in, because you're talking counting each race on every single ballot. If the count doesn't equal, they have to start all over."

Owens said during the last primary, there were 27 races that had to be counted.

"If that's the way they choose to run it, it's up to them," she said. "I would have to take the results and manually enter them into my software to get one total, and your results will take a little bit longer if they wait to do the hand-counting here. But I don't think that's what they're leaning towards."

She said she is waiting to hear from the party if it plans to rent any of the county's iVotronic machines.

"HAVA requires a machine that's accessible so a person with a handicap can vote unassisted," Owens said. "They can still use our iVotronics, and will need one machine per location," Owens said. "Otherwise, they will have to use another machine, like our old Automarks. Those cost $5,400 apiece, and the rental price is who knows how much? They would have to have one of those at each polling place, whereas with the iVotronic, the state says I can only charge them $5 to rent it. When you go out and rent from the vendors, you're subject to their prices."

She said the county's Democratic Party will use the iVotronic machines for its primary election.

"I'm doing a full contract with them - I will provide all the services," she said. "It will be less expensive for them, because they don't have to pay for a lot of ballots, or the supplies."

Questions about the accuracy of the iVotronic machines don't add up for Owens, who says the machines are calibrated and tested three times before reaching voters, then kept untouched for 30 days afterwards in case of controversy.

She said she's willing to work with Republicans to help them as much or as little as they wish with their primary.

"But as far as I know the only thing I'm providing is voting boxes and locks, signs for the polling places, worker training and tabulating the vote and then they're responsible for everything else," she said. "It's really very important for people to understand this is the party's election - so if something goes wrong during that time, it's on them. My responsibility is running early voting, getting out the mail-out ballots then tallying the vote at the end."