Election night goes smooth except for one ‘hiccup’ (OH)
Dayton Daily News. November 11, 2009. By Nancy Bowman, Contributing writer
Original: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/election/election-night-goes-smooth-except-for-one-hiccup-396423.html?showComments=true

TROY — Election night was rolling along just fine, until a familiar nemesis struck at the Miami County Board of Elections.

Ballot tabulating equipment was unable to read a voting machine memory card.

That resulted in a near two-hour delay to get the final unofficial vote results as election workers headed to Piqua to retrieve voting machines in the precinct where votes were cast on the card Nov. 3.

After attempts to retrieve the information on a card were unsuccessful, election officials were preparing to hand count the 93 votes in the affected precinct. One last attempt to pull the information, using a advice from a Premier Election Equipment technician working in another county, was successful, allowing the board to finish ballot counting before 11:30 p.m.

“Everything went fairly smoothly, except that memory card,” said Steve Quillen, elections director.

Board member Robert Huffman Jr. agreed as the board wrapped up Election Day with a short meeting after the final precinct’s votes were counted.

“We had one hiccup, but you fixed it,” he said.

It was different a year earlier, when a memory card malfunctioned, forcing election officials to bring in extra counting equipment and recount into the early morning hours several thousand of ballots.

Turnout was 45 percent for the Nov. 3 election, which featured one countywide issue (county park district levy), a three-way mayor’s race in Piqua and five people seeking four seats on Tipp City Council.

Pam Calendine, deputy elections director, said 421 provisional ballots were cast.The provisional ballots along with votes from Darke County will decide races for Bradford village council and board of education Calendine said.

Also up in the air is the outcome of the Upper Valley JVS levy to raise funds for an of the 35-year-old school in Piqua.