Voters complain about faint ovals on ballots
By The Associated Press - 11/16/06
BOZEMAN (AP) — Gallatin County election officials have fielded more than 100 formal complaints from voters who said the ovals they were required to fill in on their Nov. 7 ballots were too faint.

Officials said nothing could be done about the problem before the election, but they’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

‘‘Correcting this is definitely something we want to do,’’ said Bowen Greenwood, a spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Johnson. ‘‘Technical discussions of how to do that have not started yet, but that is the goal.’’

The problems stemmed from a technical issue with electronic vote-counting machines supplied to the state by Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb.

The machines were necessary to help Montana comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.

However, state law requires paper ballots, and that puts constraints on the type of equipment that can be used. Greenwood said ES&S was the only company the state could find that could provide machines that balanced federal and state requirements.

The machines electronically count votes marked on ballots, which are then tallied by a central computer. Ovals with dark outlines can lead to miscounted votes, Greenwood said.

‘‘These types of machines have to have (the ovals) be lighter, and that makes them harder to see,’’ Greenwood said.

Gallatin County election officials said the problem was frustrating.

Clerk and Recorder Shelley Vance said the county ballot was delivered by ES&S as an electronic document that could not be altered by local printers, even though it was obvious the faint ovals would present a problem.

‘‘We’ve used this company since 1992, and I believe in the company,’’ Vance said. ‘‘But I think they delivered an unacceptable product to the citizens of Gallatin County.’’