What's to blame for election chaos?

A simple error in a computer program might have excluded thousands of Hamilton County residents from voter registration lists in Tuesday's election.

The mistake, one of several that may have occurred on Election Day, could explain why the names of so many voters didn't come up when poll workers searched for them in the county's new electronic sign-in books.

So what was the problem? The system apparently rejected anyone who registered to vote after July 6, which is three months earlier than the actual registration cut-off date of Oct. 5.

Tim Burke, chairman of the county's board of elections, said Friday that elections officials learned of the possible error a few days after the election and are now scrambling to find out how it could have happened and how much impact it had on voters.

He said as many as 11,000 voters could have been affected.

"It is easily fixable," Burke said. "But it never should have happened."

He said the problem seems to be connected to the Aug. 6 special election, which involved fewer precincts than Tuesday's county-wide election and was used as a trial run for the new electronic poll books.

The cut-off date for registering for that special election was July 6. For reasons that still are unclear, Burke said, that date also may have been used in the poll books for Tuesday's election, which should have had an Oct. 5 cut-off.

Tenex Solutions, the Florida-based company that was paid $1.2 million to design the system, is working with elections officials to find out what happened and why. The company's president, Ravi Kallem, declined comment until that work is done, possibly as early as next week.

Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday told county officials to complete their investigation no later than Dec. 11.

"The voters of Hamilton County deserve to know the facts surrounding the challenges experienced by voters and precinct election officials," Husted said.

Elections officials say no one was turned away from the polls and everyone who wanted to vote should have been able to cast a regular ballot or a provisional ballot, which is counted days later after the voter's registration information is more closely vetted.

Hamilton County led the state in provisional ballots Tuesday, handing out more than 11,000. It's unlikely that number corresponds directly to the 11,000 voters who could have been affected by a date mix-up, but it does suggest problems here were more widespread than elsewhere.

About 5 percent of ballots cast in Hamilton County were provisional, compared to about 2.5 percent for the rest of the state.

While the date mistake could explain why new voters ran into trouble, it wouldn't explain why so many long-time residents complained Tuesday that they also were left out of the system. That's one of the many problems investigators are working on now.

Based on Enquirer reporting over the past few days, here's a run-down of some of the most significant problems and what may have caused them:

Technology glitches

The new electronic poll books, which match voters' identification to their registration, were supposed to save time and aggravation by replacing the old paper poll books. Tenex touts it as a "solution that will make early voting and Election Day headache free."

That didn't work out, at least not this time. But it's unclear whether the headaches voters and poll workers endured Tuesday were the fault of the equipment or the users of the equipment, or some combination of both.

Burke said investigators suspect the company might be responsible for the possible registration date mix-up, but they don't know for certain yet. Other technical issues are just as hard to pin down.

For example, workers at some polling places said they had trouble booting up the system when polls opened that morning. Others couldn't print out the stickers that are used to ensure voters get the correct ballots. And others struggled to find long-time voters in the electronic registry.

Poll worker training

Poll workers received three to four hours of training on the new system, but some have complained it was inadequate or that workers coasted through without really understanding the technology.

"At my training session, there were people I'm sure had never touched a computer," said Albert Tomasi, a retired Amberley Village man who worked the polls in Indian Hill. "Quite a few people in there had no idea what was going on."

Elections officials, however, said the training sessions were thorough and that instructors monitored each poll worker to make sure they could operate the equipment. They said about 20 workers were dismissed because they couldn't master the system.

Still, the learning curve was steeper for some than others. Tomasi said a high school girl working at his polling place was more familiar with using the iPad, the technology upon which the system is based, and adapted to it more quickly than other poll workers.

"She was whipping people through left and right," Tomasi said.

Backup failures

The problems weren't entirely unexpected, because any new system will hit some snags. But those problems were exacerbated by the failure of the main back-up system: the old paper sign-in books.

Elections officials say the old books were available at every polling place and poll workers were instructed to use them if they could not find voters' names in the electronic books. At least 10 polling locations reverted to the books after giving up on the new system. Some poll workers, however, said they were not told to use the old books and, in some cases, didn't even know the paper books were available.

So instead of cross-checking names in the old books, many poll workers resorted to handing out provisional ballots. That angered some long-time residents and caused delays at polling places.

"It never was mentioned during our training," said Bob Martin, a retired lawyer from Colerain Township who worked as a deputy poll manager. He said he and other workers were irritated on Election Day when county officials suggested many of the problems were user errors. In other words, it's the poll workers' fault.

"That's like blaming the waitress for a bad meal instead of the chef," Martin said.

Martin, who moved here a few years ago from Florida, which has its own checkered past with elections, said he hopes officials here can work out the kinks soon. If the problems happen again next year, when all eyes are on Ohio and Hamilton County during the presidential election, the stakes and the consequences will be much higher.

"That would not be good," Martin said.