CLARK COUNTY: Voting smooth, even with high turnout

Clark County

Discussion

November 6, 2008

GOP challengers caused some hold-ups

By MELISSA MOODY The News and Tribune Thu Nov 06, 2008, 01:54 PM EST

Election officials said Wednesday that voting went well in Clark County, especially considering the enormous turnout and the more than 7,000 residents that voted early.

“It went surprisingly smoothly,” said county clerk Barbara Haas. “I was anticipating more problems.”

Just more than 60 percent of registered voters cast a ballot — 3 percentage points more than in 2004 — and there were lines at the polls to prove it. Wilson Elementary School, which houses three polling locations, was particularly busy Tuesday, with a line of cars a half mile down on either side of Charlestown Pike in the morning.

“I thought people would still be voting at 8 p.m.,” Haas said.

When the polls closed at 6 p.m., poll workers still had to run more than 200 absentee ballots through the voting machine. The polls were so busy during open hours, that there wasn’t time to run the absentee ballots until the last person voted.

Republican Party challengers — put at the polls by the party to watch for fraud — caused some hold-ups at the polls Tuesday. A challenger at Charlestown Precinct 6 wanted to challenge every absentee ballot, Haas said.

“Our No. 1 complaint Tuesday was the challengers — that was 95 percent of the complaints,” said Donna Ennis, president of the county election board. “The party people were trying to tell the poll workers what to do; basically we refereed all day. This is the first election I encountered that.

“This election, people were very passionate about their candidates.”

Republican Party Chairman David Buskill said the challengers were there to prevent fraud, not disrupt the voting process. Certain precincts have more problems than others, he said.

“They’re really there to watch out and make sure procedures are followed,” Buskill said. “[Challengers] were trying to instruct [poll workers] that they need to follow exact procedures and there’s reasons for that. There was nothing malicious.”

Buskill said that at Charlestown Precinct 6, poll workers weren’t checking for the Republican and Democrat initials on absentee ballots they were feeding into the machines. Jim Smith, the challenger at that location, ended up filing three challenges to the election board.

The county Democratic Party chooses to not use challengers. Chairman Rod Pate said challengers are repetitive and a waste of time.

“You’ve already got three people — a Democrat, a Republican and an inspector [there],” he said. “It’s an archaic law. The only purpose the challenger serves is to disrupt the voting process.”

Pate said voter fraud is rare and difficult to accomplish.

“Everything is checked, and double-checked, and rechecked,” he said. “I think it went very smooth. We had an unprecedented turnout.”