Reply #1: PA: Election Officials Fretting Write-Ins [View All]

[livvy]

05/03/2007
Election officials fretting write-ins
BY DAVID SINGLETON
STAFF WRITER

Each of Lackawanna County’s 509 voting machines holds an 86-foot-long roll of sales receipt-like paper.


On Wednesday, Cathy Hardaway, the county director of voter education, ordered 1,200 more rolls for the machines — nearly 20 miles worth of it.

After the polls close May 15, every machine will spit out four copies of a paper record of every vote cast on the device. That includes a complete list of every write-in.

Even before this week, election officials fretted some machines could run out of paper on election night. With Republican Commissioner Robert C. Cordaro now mounting a write-in campaign after being bounced from the primary ballot Monday, they’re planning on it.

Mr. Cordaro joins Phil Spinka and Robert Castellani in the write-in derby for the GOP nomination for commissioner, a three-way race that has Mrs. Hardaway’s office bracing for thousands of write-in votes.

That is likely to produce paper lists of results from some polling places that are 30 or more feet long. And each of those write-in votes will have to be scrutinized and then tallied by hand.

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