Winnebago County ballot problems [View all]

[murielm99]

When I went to vote today in Ogle County, I found out from one of the election judges that the ballots in Winnebago County could not be scanned by the machines. The company that printed them, a place in the Quad Cities, made them 1/16th of an inch too long. All the ballots had to be brought to the courthouse, reprinted, and then scanned. Of course, that made it take longer to get the results out to the voters.

I heard that some places in Lee County had the same problem. Does anyone know anything about this?

When I was the county chairman here, I was involved in the testing of the machines. This testing is required by law. The county clerk has the chairmen of each party, or their designee, attend the test. The clerk runs each of the ballots being used in the county through the machines to make sure that everything works. We all had to sign something that says we attended the testing, and that everything worked. This is sent to the State Board of Elections. How could this have happened in Winnebago County if they did the tests? What a colossal screwup!