August 10, 2000

BY MATT HELMS FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Election officials throughout Oakland County promised Wednesday that the glitches that caused slow vote counts and late reporting of results Tuesday night would be fixed by November.

It was a combination of factors -- technical and human -- that caused some communities to post returns hours later than usual. That piled onto problems central Oakland County election officials had with the county's computer system.

County Clerk G. William Caddell said it was a simple electrical overload that shut down computers and delayed posting results.

"We probably had too many hair dryers plugged in or something, and when that went down, it took our computers down," Caddell said Wednesday. "It was a simple thing. It won't happen next time. We're going to get less hair dryers and more circuits." The power outage was contained to the office and did not affect the entire building.

In addition, some communities' computer systems weren't compatible with the county's, forcing election workers to manually enter results from faxes into computers. The glitches require minor fixes that are not expected to be costly.

Meanwhile, three communities where results are usually available early also found themselves lagging.

In West Bloomfield, township Clerk Sharon Law said a last-minute rush of returned absentee ballots caught election workers off guard, causing a two-hour delay.

"By the Friday before the election, we had less than half of them back," she said. "But by Monday, we had about 90 percent back. So they all came back in over the weekend and surprised us immensely."

Novi, where results were delayed until after 1 a.m., had problems with confirming votes against the number of ballots. And a machine that counts totals "had a nervous breakdown," Deputy Clerk Nancy Reutter said with a chuckle. "We had a communication breakdown between our computer and our printer. We could not see the results."

In Troy, deputy city clerk Tonni Bartholomew said the city's count of absentee votes was hindered by a scheduling problem: The room the city usually uses for elections was being used for firefighter training.

"We had hoped to start around 4 p.m." but had to wait until 5:30, she said. The totals were ready about 12:30 a.m., a performance she called "not bad."

All in all, Caddell said, the system still worked better than before computerization in the 1990s, when results often weren't posted until the next day.

Final county results were up on the Internet about 3 a.m.

http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/negoof10_20000810.htm

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 10, 2000

Answers

Did Friday arrive early? I don't quite see why there would be an excess of hair dryers being used in a county office building... perhaps the reccommended solution should be buzz cuts (that will air dry) for all employees.

-- Celia (celiam@aol.com), August 10, 2000.

I believe it was Squirrels using the hair dryers. :-'

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), August 10, 2000.

Shave the squirrels then. Less allergic, and easier to see their little name badges.

-- Celia (celiaam@aol.com), August 10, 2000.