Owen County election board finds missing pages and absentee discrepancies during ballot proofing

Owen County election board members spent the meeting proofing precinct machine and absentee ballots and discovered several administrative issues that will require follow-up.

Members routinely read candidate listings for each precinct and compared machine pages with absentee copies because both sets come from the same vendor files. During the review they found that the third page was missing on some machine ballots in several locations; in at least one case a page had stuck to another and was not readily visible. The board paused work to locate and correct missing pages before continuing.

The board also discussed activation codes and delegate-seat counts for multiple precincts, noting changes this year in delegate allotments for some areas and confirming how many delegates voters should select on each list. Members noted that vendor software can sometimes alter punctuation or spacing and agreed to accept the software’s rendering for certain commas unless the board approves manual edits.

A scheduling item arose during the Franklin precinct review: members discussed the machine-certification session set for Tuesday the 24th at 9:30 a.m., and agreed all three partisan representatives must be present for the test. One member said she would ask a relative to serve as a proxy if she is away; the board discussed standard proxy practice for certification but reaffirmed the requirement that all three party designees attend when possible.

The board recorded these discrepancies on the signoff sheet and confirmed other items — candidate spellings, alphabetical ordering and vote limits — were correct. They agreed to mark the missing-page instances for follow-up and to have the clerk’s office verify corrections as they finalize ballots for the May 5 primary.

The meeting’s proofing work continued after the short break and the board completed signoff paperwork for the session.