The error found Wednesday affected more than 400 ballots, leading to possibility of a special election for Tippecanoe Township trustee after Nov. 3 results come out.
Is it not possible for the Election Board to contact every person that submitted one of the 424 votes, regardless of if they left the race blank or voted for Jones, and explained the situation and offered to drive out with a replacement ballot?
The problem of course will be that there will be some that voted for Jones that only did so because he was the only one on the ballot and they don’t want to bother with a revote and others that will just not be contactable.
And a special election will of course be costly and will draw out less voters anyway.
"The mistake was caught early Wednesday afternoon when a candidate for Tippecanoe Township Board noted that the ballot on a voting machine at the County Office Building did not show the name of Holden Mugford, a Democrat who is running against Republican incumbent Bill Jones for the trustee’s office."
It's fascinating that it took another candidate to point this out to the people elected, appointed, and salaried to ensure that everything is in tip top shape for our elections.
It takes a village to raise a county.
As Mugford shared, transparency, especially proactive transparency, is absolutely critical in a democratic republic. And we need more of it here in Tippecanoe.
That should be our new Tippecanoe Way. Transparency.
To be fair, with some voting machine issues, you'll only see them if the conditions are set up right to see them. So while I don't know the specifics how the vote machines bugged, it's possible that the only possible way to see the issue would be to stare at the ballot of someone coming into to vote. On the other hand, you may be completely right and it may have been something easily seeable and preventable. I am just glad that it was noticed (hopefully) early enough, though, to get fixed without a costly special election.
P.S. if I hear updates on what happened I'll update you (and if you hear more let me know!)
Is it not possible for the Election Board to contact every person that submitted one of the 424 votes, regardless of if they left the race blank or voted for Jones, and explained the situation and offered to drive out with a replacement ballot?
The problem of course will be that there will be some that voted for Jones that only did so because he was the only one on the ballot and they don’t want to bother with a revote and others that will just not be contactable.
And a special election will of course be costly and will draw out less voters anyway.
Thanks, Dave.
"The mistake was caught early Wednesday afternoon when a candidate for Tippecanoe Township Board noted that the ballot on a voting machine at the County Office Building did not show the name of Holden Mugford, a Democrat who is running against Republican incumbent Bill Jones for the trustee’s office."
It's fascinating that it took another candidate to point this out to the people elected, appointed, and salaried to ensure that everything is in tip top shape for our elections.
It takes a village to raise a county.
As Mugford shared, transparency, especially proactive transparency, is absolutely critical in a democratic republic. And we need more of it here in Tippecanoe.
That should be our new Tippecanoe Way. Transparency.
To be fair, with some voting machine issues, you'll only see them if the conditions are set up right to see them. So while I don't know the specifics how the vote machines bugged, it's possible that the only possible way to see the issue would be to stare at the ballot of someone coming into to vote. On the other hand, you may be completely right and it may have been something easily seeable and preventable. I am just glad that it was noticed (hopefully) early enough, though, to get fixed without a costly special election.
P.S. if I hear updates on what happened I'll update you (and if you hear more let me know!)