Benton County Election Officials Can't Catch a Break
By: Rebecca Jeffrey
Updated: November 8, 2012
Benton county election officials are still counting votes Thursday from Tuesday's election.
Broken voting machines led to more people needing paper ballots, but there weren't enough of those to go around. The Election Commission had to scramble to get more ballots out to the polls.
Once those paper ballots were ready to go, more problems ensued.
The machine that counts paper ballots malfunctioned and left Benton County counting by hand.
Washington County stepped in to help and offered up their paper ballot counter.
"Our machines went down on us and that just made all the difference in the world with all the ballots we had to count," Kim Dennison, Benton County Election Coordinator said.
Luckily, Washington County stepped in to help.
"I suggested, you should just come down here and just count your ballots with our machines rather than try to hand count them which would be a huge process," Jennifer Price, the Washington County Election Coordinator said.
Even with the working machines, more than 300 ballots were rejected.
"It will spit it out so that it doesn't count the ballot inaccurately, which is the most important thing," Price said.
Important, but time consuming. It meant they had to count the ballots by hand; a task that may not be done until Friday.
"Probably close to noon, depending on how many hands I have to help me," Dennison said.
Despite the setback - one thing is keeping Dennison going. A light at the end of the tunnel and a good support system.
"A little more relieved. I know that there's still a long ways to go and I couldn't do it without the help of everybody supporting me."
