Early voting on par with past years
May 17—Voter turnout in Nez Perce County was running a bit light last week compared to previous years, but things picked up some during the final two days of early voting.
As of last Tuesday, Nez Perce County Clerk Patty Weeks said only about 660 people had turned in ballots. That included about 500 absentee ballots and another 160 or so that were cast during the early voting period.
"Turnout has been pretty poor," she said at the time.
Things got a little busier as the week went on, though. By the time early voting ended Friday, 464 people had cast ballots. A total of 687 absentee ballots have also been received, which is in line with past years.
Weeks said there are 23,053 registered voters in the county. That doesn't include any new or unaffiliated voters who register at the polls today.
Her office has run several tests on its vote tabulation equipment in preparation for today's primary election. That included a test Monday afternoon that was open to the public.
The equipment will be tested again before and after the primary election ballots are counted, Weeks said, just to make sure everything is running the way it's supposed to.
"We run logic and accuracy tests on all of the equipment," she said. "We have a full test deck of 1,888 ballots that we created. We've run that through a couple of times. For the public test, we randomly draw one precinct and run those ballots. We test and we test and we test."
The logic and accuracy tests are intended to ensure that votes are tabulated correctly, she said. Most real-life problems, though, are mechanical in nature.
"Absentee ballots are the most difficult," Weeks said. "People eat while they're voting, so there's grease, crumbs or food particles stuck to them."
Some people also get a little "wild" when marking the ballots, she said. If they stray too far outside the oval, the machine kicks the ballot out so it must be hand-counted.
Polls are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today. For those voting absentee, the ballots must be returned to the county elections office by 8 p.m. in order to be counted.
Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.
