Paper-ballot problems not a first

As an Aurora election judge volunteer, my precinct was one of the many dealing with the wrong-sized-paper-ballot issue during the March 20 primary. It was disruptive and would have caused far greater problems in a general election when voter turnout would have been larger.

It’s not the first time paper ballot issues have occurred. I believe it was the last general election when paper ballots had the wrong color hue or ink, which caused another paper ballot snafu. Fortunately, that was corrected before day’s end. On this election day, proper-sized ballots were not delivered, and precincts were forced to “trim” down existing ballots, a time-consuming issue, not only during the election but in the counting process after the polls closed.

On the positive side, we reverted to the “touch” system electronic voting, which voters easily utilized. However, had it been a general election with a larger turnout, the process would have resulted in inordinate delays since each precinct has only one touch system computer. Also, by day’s end we were forced to revert to the paper ballot process when the touch system ran out of the paper rolls needed to print election results.

What this all boils down to is a lack of quality control at the election commission level. The whole problem should have been foreseen with several dry runs to determine appropriate paper ballot dimensions. Election judge volunteers go through a “training process” that is sketchy at best. Commissioners must become more hands-on in these matters. If this happens during next November’s presidential race, paper ballot problems here could become synonymous with Florida “chads.”

Dean Dranias

Aurora