Electronic ballot prevents preview of Council choices
By CHRIS BARBEE cbarbee@leader-news.com

Many El Campo residents voting early in both the El Campo ISD and El Campo City Council elections at the Fire & EMS Building left the polling site concerned about whether their votes for City Council had been counted or not by the electronic voting machines.

After marking their electronic ballot, voters are given the opportunity to "preview" the ballot to check it for accuracy before pressing the red "vote" button. The school board candidates voted for came up for preview, but the City Council selec- tions did not.

County Election Administrator Judy Owens said Thursday afternoon the software does not allow for races where three or more votes are cast for one position to be previewed, such as in the at-large race for City Council which has seven candidates. She assures voters the votes were counted; they just could not be previewed.

"To make sure, you can hit the 'back' button and it will take you back to the screen to review how you voted," she said.

Owens said she had personally heard comments from voters when she was at the El Campo site Thursday before noon. "There must have been seven or eight voters who came through, and from each one, I heard that conversation repeated several times. They were told this is just how the software is designed," she said.

"It's because of the multiple choice. There are so many options it (the machine) cannot handle that many options. What will have to happen next time is the races will have to be split where you could choose only one of two candidates," she said.

In other words, an at-large screen listing only two candidates would come up, followed by another and another, as needed.

Asked what would happen if a voter voted for both the candidates on one screen, Owens said she needs to check with the vendor to see if that is allowed, although she thinks it can handle up to two selections in each race, but not three or more.

"This is something we might consider next year. This is something we hadn't encountered before. I'll talk to City Council about it next time. If you have seven candidates, you could break it down to two in each race ... to have multiple at-large races. That's an option we'll need to discuss," she said.

Political Sign Location

As it is with most elections, question arise as to where political signs can be located. This week the Leader-News was asked how close a sign can be to a voting location.

"They have to be 100 feet away from the end of our property," Owens said. In other words, a sign must be at least 100 feet from the door into the Fire & EMS Building.

She said people with concerns should first contact the entity conducting the election (i.e.- school, city, etc.). That entity should then give a courtesy call to the candidate(s) and let them take care of it. If they don't, then the election judge has the authority to pull the sign if it does not meet the distance requirement.