Voting machine problem stalls Weld voting

Greeley Tribune    06 November 2007

An early-morning problem early Tuesday stalled voting across Weld County as voting machines started pulling up the wrong ballots for voters. Voting centers started manually distributing the ballots until the problem could be fixed around
9:15 a.m., said Steve Moreno, Weld County clerk and recorder.

“We did have a few hiccups this morning, but now everything seems to be going well,” Moreno said.

He said it was a widespread problem, but it was resolved fairly quickly. Since then, voting seems to be going smoothly, though there seems to be low voter turnout this year, he said.

His office mailed out about 22,000 ballots but by about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday had received about 16,000 back, Moreno said.

“There’s a lot of people who didn’t turn those back in,” he said.

Also, on an average year about 4,400 people vote early, but this year Weld only saw 3,500 early voters Moreno said.

“It just seems to be that trend in odd-year elections that less voters turn out,” Moreno said.

Voting continues until 7 p.m. tonight .