Errors, discrepancies delay results

Incomplete results indicated that voters were generous with issues.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Columbiana County's new scanner voting system didn't produce fast results because of poll worker errors and different counting plans.
County and state officials were working late into the night trying to tally the primary election results. But the incomplete results indicated that voters, for the most part, were generous toward issues.
The 0.5 percent county sales tax was defeated but by a smaller margin than last fall.
Sean Logan, chairman of the commissioners, said, "It's a disappointment. We'll just have to reorganize and figure out where we go from here."
Commissioners had been promoting the tax on the notion of having pride in frugal government.
The lack of the tax is expected to leave the county short over a $1 million in 2006.
But voters appeared to approve a replacement levy for the county mental health board that also had been defeated last fall.
Good news in Salem
Salem school district voters also approved the district's 4.3-mill levy, according in incomplete returns.
But one Salem precinct and two Perry Township precincts were among the last to report.
In the Salem precinct, election workers said the poll workers couldn't figure out how to turn the scanner off. The last of the two Perry Township precincts didn't arrive until three hours after the polls closed.
Justin Palmer, the head of city council's economic development committee, had been promoting the school levy to help the city. Palmer said the apparent victory will allow Salem to move in a positive direction.
The Leetonia Library's plan for a new facility appeared to go down to defeat by a very narrow margin. It was the first ballot try to replace the overcrowded library.
Andy Smith, library director, said its board will have to re-evaluate the situation.
By large margins, voters in Salem approved a plan that will let them negotiate for utility rates, and approved a replacement police levy in Perry Township, according to incomplete returns.
Absentee ballots, write-ins
Lois Gall, the new elections director, said Tuesday morning the board would not count about 1,250 absentee votes cast before Tuesday.
The plan was to count them when the official count is made 10 days after the election.
Workers were also trying to determine how many of those were valid. Gall said it appeared a few people had voted both absentee and at polling places.
But the Ohio Secretary of State's Office decided that the board would check both the write-in votes and absentee votes Tuesday night. The decision wasn't revealed until after the polls were closed.
Officials at the board of elections in Lisbon on Tuesday night kept giving different accounts of what and wasn't being counted.
wilkinson@vindy.com