This past Tuesday’s election in Greene County was a chance for new voting equipment to be used.

County Auditor Jane Heun says the new machines made voting simpler for the public in that it is a digital touchscreen and all people have to do it select the person they want to vote for is by pressing on that person’s name.

For the voting public, it was a breeze, however, the auditor’s office was working up until midnight on election night due to having problems with reporting software.  Heun explains that the new machines prints out a record of what candidates received which number of votes.  However, it only prints out a generic write-in category and doesn’t break it down by write-in names.

What further complicates the issue, adds Heun, is when a voter messes up spelling a write-in candidate’s name, the system won’t let them go back and change it, so they still had to go back and hand count all the write-in votes.

She states that for some town elections, write-in candidates made a difference.  Heun points out that they used these same machines for the special referendum vote for the casino, but that was only a yes or no vote without any write-ins.

She assures everyone that they will have the process figured out so that her staff will have as easy of a time by the next election as the public has had.