“Human error” caused the absentee ballot mix-up

Posted by Daniel Stout on Thu 9 Nov 2006 at 9:16 AM

On election night, I was following the results. The U.S. House race in my district was especially close. 30-year Republican incumbent Jim Leach was tied at 50% to newcomer Democrat Dave Loebsack’s 50%. Loebsack was ahead by only a few hundred votes. 99% of the votes had been counted. Where was that last bit to come from? Absentee ballots here in Johnson County. The auditor’s office was having a problem with counting the absentee ballots, which delayed the results of the very close House race here.

Rachel Gallegos, reporting in this morning’s Iowa City Press-Citizen, says it was human error that caused the problem. That’s according to JC auditor Tom Slockett. Article here. With all the high technology being brought into elections, does this simply introduce more problems and cost than benefits? Voting is a pretty simple thing. The companies that stand to profit from introducing complicating, expensive voting systems are the only ones who benefit, in my opinion.

My personal efforts to simplify voting have led me to the absentee ballot. Mailing in your mail is an easy and effective way to vote. Plus I like having the ballot in front of me, so I can do additional research on candidates, if I’m unfamiliar with the candidates for one of the lesser positions. I’ve heard that Oregon has gone entirely to mailed ballots, and I wonder how well their system is working. No system is perfect, but mailing ballots seems like a very good solution (regardless of the “human error” this time around).

Tags: absentee ballots · ballots · candidates · vote 2006 · voting

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