Interesting piece...
Officials: Ballots only altered to make them readable
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SIOUX FALLS - It is not uncommon for election workers to make duplicate ballots if the original cannot be read by machines, said elections supervisor and Secretary of State-elect Chris Nelson.
His comments came amid reports that election workers in Shannon County darkened marks on ballots because voters wrote too lightly in Tuesday's election.
But Nelson said there is a procedure for dealing with cases where ballots were not adequately marked by voters. In such cases, a resolution board creates a duplicate ballot that was marked the same way as the original, but done in a way that it can be scanned by machines, Nelson said.
Nelson said he did not know specifically what happened in Shannon County, but it would only be a problem if workers were not making duplicate ballots.
''If they were darkening the marks on existing ballots and not making a duplicate, that's greatly troublesome,'' he said. ''We want to preserve that original in the exact fashion that the voter marked it so if there's any question ... it can be reviewed.''
Renee Dross, election clerk for Fall River County, which handles elections for Shannon County, said there was nothing unusual about what election workers did and that duplicate ballots were made. Such cases come up in all elections, she said.
''It really wasn't a big deal,'' Dross said.
from:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/4459206.htmIt would certainly be a big deal if they did -both-...