Benton County Certifies Results 10 Days After Election
By: Marissa Stevens
Updated: November 16, 2012
Benton County voters cast their ballots 10 days ago, and the Election Commission certified the results Friday.
"We plan on looking at improving our elections... Elections are very hard to predict as far as the turn out. Ikind of expected with the high volume of early voting that maybe the polling sites would not see such long lines," said Benton County Clerk Tena O'Brien.
Voters waited in line for hours, then the county ran out of paper ballots. After resolving that issue, the machines stopped working.
"We had a 19-inch ballot and then we had to tri-fold those, so I think the reader had a hard time reading those ballots."
Volunteers counted thousands by hand and even shipped some off to Washington County to speed up the process, but problems persisted with another machine malfunction.
O'Brien understands folks frustration and after spending countless hours behind the scenes, she too wants to see these issues resolved.
"We will look at other methods of voting to see what comparable counties are doing and maybe some other states... We intend to sit down... Hopefully in the next two to three months and get something in the works and then sit down and do the projection, the cost and how it would be handled."
As they search for a solution to make future elections run smoothly, O'Brien hopes current complaints will not carry over to the next time folks cast their ballots in Benton County.
"That is water underneath the bridge that we can't bring back so we can only go forward."
