From staff reports

news@joplinglobe.com

An effort to cover a shortage of ballots for voters in Jasper County on Tuesday was expected to keep complete tallies for several races out until possibly the wee hours of this morning.

Some voters were given photocopied ballots after the county ran out of printed ballots Tuesday afternoon in several precincts.

Ron Mosbaugh, county clerk, said supplies of ballots had been exhausted in about a dozen precincts.

He said his office made photocopies of the ballots and delivered them. He said voters could use the copied ballots, but they would have to be hand-counted.

Mosbaugh said he underestimated voter turnout in ordering supplies.

“Normally, we throw away as many ballots as are



voted after every election,” he said. “But the turnout this year is a lot higher, closer to turnouts for presidential election years.”

Photocopied ballots are acceptable, though they have to be counted by hand, said Stacie Temple, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.

She said she had heard that ballot supplies also had been exhausted in several other parts of the state, including Jefferson County, Pemiscot County and St. Louis County.

Republican officials were checking to see if the voting hours could be extended, citing the county’s importance to the U.S. Senate race between Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill. But Temple said a law removed that authority from local circuit judges and gave it only to federal judges.

Mosbaugh at 7 p.m. ordered election judges to allow all those in line at the time to vote.

The county clerk at first said he would not attempt to count photocopied ballots Tuesday night, but then decided to count into the night and possibly into this morning.

Mosbaugh acknowledged that he had underestimated when he ordered ballots, basing his estimate on a 25 percent voter turnout.

Susan DeCarlo, chairwoman for Jasper County Democrats, said local attorneys Jane Wyman and Jim Fleischaker were looking into problems associated with the ballot shortage on behalf of Democrats before the polls were to close at 7 p.m. DeCarlo said the party’s district headquarters in Springfield also had contacted Jasper County Democrats about the election problems the county was experiencing.

She said she had not received any clear claims of voter fraud by 6:45 p.m.

“I don’t think I’ve caught wind yet of anything being done because of someone’s party affiliation,” DeCarlo said.

In Carl Junction

A voter at Carl Junction High School said 200 ballot copies that were handed out there were flawed.

The ballots that were given to voters already were marked for Kelly Stephens, a candidate for chairman of the Jasper County Emergency Services Board, according to Calvin Churchwell.

Churchwell said he arrived at the high school to vote about 3:50 p.m.

“They ran out (of printed ballots) just as I got there,” he said.

He said precinct officials had sent an election worker to the Jasper County clerk’s office to get ballot copies about 3:30 p.m., and that 200 copies were brought back and given to him and others who were waiting about 5:30 p.m. He said several of those who first received the ballots noticed the flaw right away and pointed it out to election judges.

“The line was marked straight across,” Churchwell said.

He said the ballots appeared to have been deliberately marked by someone and were not a photocopy flaw.

“Everybody there thought it was not an accidental mark,” he said.

Churchwell said that once the flaw was pointed out, a precinct official called the county clerk’s office to inquire about what to do about the ballot copies and was told to have voters circle the name of the candidate for whom they wished to vote for that office. He said precinct workers then continued to distribute the flawed ballots to voters.

“I’m just not comfortable with that,” Churchwell said of the way matters were handled.

Mosbaugh said the mark in question was a yellow smudge on the ballot that, when photocopied, appeared as a mark.

Churchwell said he and many others waited an hour and 40 minutes to vote because of the ballot shortage. But not everyone in line at the time was able to wait that long.

“I counted 12 people who came in and left because they couldn’t just wait,” Churchwell said.

In Joplin

Sally Wetherell, shortly after 4:30 p.m., said she had been waiting in line at the polling place at the Joplin Association for the Blind for nearly 30 minutes.

“People are leaving without voting,” she said. “I can wait another 30 minutes, but then I have to leave. I may have to leave without voting.”

Some people, she said, had been waiting for as long as 45 minutes and counting, after the polling station ran out of ballots.

About 5 p.m., she was in a race against time: She was scheduled to start work at 5:30 p.m. Replacement ballots still had yet to arrive.

“I have already seen five or six people leave,” she said.

Additional ballots arrived at Irving Elementary School in Joplin late in the day to cheers from as many as 50 people waiting to vote.

Some people remained calm, while others were agitated by a wait they said had been up to 90 minutes. A couple of people walked in and left after seeing the line.

“First-time voter. I will never vote again,” said Delores Austin, of Joplin, while waiting for the ballots to arrive. She said she came to support Amendment 2.

“You guys want us to make a difference, and then they have this. It’s so discouraging.”

Loveta Mitchell, of Joplin, had been waiting for an hour on the additional ballots.

“I’m going to wait it out,” she said with a shrug. “It is the only way you get to vote.”

Twenty minutes later, Amy Staples said she voted in favor of a proposed public-safety sales tax for Joplin; for Jim Talent as U.S. senator; for John Bartosh as Jasper County presiding commissioner; for the stem-cell measure; and against both the proposed tobacco tax and minimum-wage increase.

Staples waited for more than an hour to vote.

“It was no big deal,” she said. “It’s part of life.”

Though some left without voting, about a dozen stalwarts waited for ballots at Forest Park Baptist Church.

Election judges told them they did not know how long voters would have to wait, because they did not know when photocopied replacement ballots would arrive.

“I’m going to wait,” said Sandra Griffin.

She and Alva Cortez shared candies passed around by election judges. Griffin suggested that someone order pizza.

Election judges said the turnout at the precinct was larger than that for the last presidential election.

“We normally get 1,000 ballots, and we have half of them left over,” said one of the judges. This year, the precinct received 700 ballots and ran out about 6 p.m.

J.J. Patterson, a Realtor, said she could not stay because she had to show a house.

“I would come back if someone would tell me when I can vote, but they say I can’t leave and come back when they get the ballots, that I have to be inside the building at 7 p.m.,” she said. “This is crazy.”

Staff writers Susan Redden, Jeff Lehr, Mike Dwyer and Derek Spellman contributed to this report.