Will Columbiana election results go online?

LISBON — Columbiana County officials say it’s a “definite maybe” that people will be able to get election results online for the first time tonight.

Todd A. Mumpire, who oversees the county’s computer system, said Monday he had passed the needed information to the board of elections.

Thomas L. Edgell, the deputy director of the county elections board, said that the board’s computer company was working to install the program.

The program will allow the vote tallies in the board’s counting system to be moved to the results portion of a Web page. Online visitors should go to www.columbianacounty.org, click on the board of elections site, and go to “election results.”

People will need to download Adobe Reader in order to view the votes. That can be done at “election results.”

Mumpire said that using Adobe would prevent “any problem with human error” in retyping the totals onto the Web site.

The board will also be distributing paper copies of election results throughout the night as usual, according to Edgell.

The board traditionally tallies the first 10 precincts that arrive, and then releases more results in stages before the final count.

The board earlier this year said it wanted to have online results available either this fall or by the primary race in 2008.

For more, see Tuesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com