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County recounts tabulator and test‑ballot problems after primary; new SB 440 reporting adds workload
Summary
Officials said a tabulator roller grabbed extra ballots in one run and only 145 of 400 test ballots were marked as "test"; ES&S/ESNS technicians adjusted equipment and the county must now post additional SB 440 spreadsheets online.
Commissioners heard that the tabulator used in the primary had a mechanical issue during parts of the count and that some test ballots were not usable for the pre‑check process.
The County Clerk told the board the tabulator "was grabbing more ballots than it should have been grabbing with the roller" and that technicians from the vendor (ESNS/ES&S) were called to make adjustments. Because several judges performed early pickup and combined separation stacks, staff could not always tell which ballots were strictly absentee vs. polling‑place in a small number of runs. The county said it reconciled accepted ballot totals from scanned records to produce the final accepted count.
Separately, the clerk said the county printed 400 test ballots but only 145 were marked "test" and usable as a pre‑marked deck; the remainder were not used, and the pre‑marked deck that did exist was run successfully. Commissioners described that doing the statutory test decks is required by law before an election to ensure machines function properly.
Election staff also described the impact of Senate Bill 440: the new spreadsheet requires more fields and new public posting of the data, which increased recordkeeping time and prompted the clerk to spend several hours with the state to reconcile back‑end reporting.
Election staff indicated the issues did not produce outcome‑changing discrepancies, and the county will include corrective steps and the SB 440 spreadsheet in the record it forwards for certification.
