Uh-oh. I foresee some problems for Scioto County voting this fall

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/articles/2006/07/31/news/local_news/1news_precincts.txt

(From the Portsmouth Daily Times)

City precincts change

By MARK SHAFFER
PDT News Editor
Sunday, July 30, 2006 11:42 PM EDT


Many Scioto County voters will find themselves in a new place the next time they cast their ballot.

Last week, the Scioto County Board of Elections sent out more than 10,000 cards to notify voters that they live in a precinct that has been combined with other voting precincts or that it has been renamed. Before they were combined, there were 106 precincts. Now there are 90.

“In the city of Portsmouth, we have several precincts that are really small, and we combined them to make it more efficient,” said Jane Saddler, deputy director of the Scioto County Board of Elections. “And sometimes it's just hard to get poll workers, especially since we got the new equipment.”

In 2005, Scioto County switched over to an optical scan voting system. Voters fill in an oval on a paper ballot and then the ballot is scanned into a memory card. In the 2005 general election, there were issues with the system and it took eight hours to get a final tally.

Saddler said by having fewer precincts, fewer poll workers will be needed. The extra equipment can be kept on hand in case of scanner failure. Each voting precinct has four poll workers - two Democrats and two Republicans....

MORE

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1. Dems need to address this in GOTV

It would be a good idea to connect each registered dem the week before the election to confirm their polling place - and check with the BOE before hand to make sure that you are giving correct information.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Yes, please!

I no longer live in Scioto County but I can see the potential for real problems here.

In a county where they've already had major problems with voting machines (see some of my archived threads in the Ohio forum), they're now reducing the number of machines and precincts and poll workers? So now there can be more confusion, longer lines and fewer people to handle the transition or problems which may arise? Yeah, that's the ticket, just in time for the major mid-term elections. Ken Blackwell must be salivating at the prospects to screw with the voting process, especially when this is Scioto County where the demographic is increasingly voting Democratic and the 65/35 split for Hackett nearly defeated Jean Schmidt. Scioto IS the democratic stronghold in District 2, and I'm not trusting this one bit.

[urbuddha]

3. Let's get some locals to pass out the correct polling places to everyone

:kick: