Warren among counties that must reprint ballots
Published 11:41 am Thursday, October 20, 2011
Warren County officials are waiting on updated information from the Secretary of State’s Office to reprogram electronic ballot cards to show extra wording on three initiatives before voters Nov. 8.
A reprint has been ordered of the ballot showing a “fiscal analysis” — the cost to taxpayers for each of the ballot initiatives — to be included on the ballots, as required by the state Constitution, the Secretary of State’s Office said.
Attorney General Jim Hood contacted Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann’s office last week saying he believed analyses should appear on the ballot with the initiatives.
Warren County Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree said her office hadn’t received scannable ballots yet. Counties had developed ballots based on a sample ballot distributed by Hosemann’s office Sept. 14.
“We’re just waiting on a corrected database to be uploaded here,” she said, adding once it arrives, officials with the Election Commission and Premier Election Systems, which makes the touch-screen machines used here will handle updates to ballot cards.
Any absentee votes already cast will count and the Secretary of State’s Office will pay the counties’ extra printing costs, said Pam Weaver, a Hosemann spokeswoman. The number of counties affected and the total cost of the reprint was unknown, she said.
The initiatives involve amendments requiring voters to show photo identification in order to vote, deciding whether to restrict government’s power to take private property for public projects and whether to declare that life begins when a human egg is fertilized.