The Daviess County Board of Elections will be contacting 55 people today after a coding error during Thursday’s early voting prevented them from being able to vote in the Owensboro City Commission race. County Clerk Leslie McCarty said the error was the fault of the coding provider, Tenex Software Solutions, and was fixed after voting closed Thursday.
The error only affected Precinct 40 voters who cast ballots during Thursday’s early voting at Owensboro Christian Church. Precinct 40 voters previously cast their ballots at Centre Court in the 2019 election when precincts were still utilized.
Monday morning, the seven candidates for City Commission appeared before the local Board of Elections and agreed that it is best for the 55 voters to be notified today and allowed to vote for that race either today and Tuesday, if they so desire.
The 55 affected voters have until Tuesday at 6 p.m. to vote at the Daviess County Courthouse. Those voters will only be allowed to vote in the City Commission race at the Courthouse, but their votes cast Thursday for other races will still be counted.
“We can notify them today to come in and vote on an absentee ballot and we’ll count those ballots that come in by hand and add them to the total on Tuesday,” County Attorney Claud Porter said.
Both Porter and McCarty stated that they are able to obtain the voters’ identity through the e-books that voters register in when they vote. However, whom they voted for is not observed.
Porter and McCarty said that the local board entered the coding correctly and provided beta testing; however, due to an error by the provider, it was misinterpreted.
McCarty said the issued was fixed and all those who voted Friday and Saturday and those who will vote on Tuesday will have a proper ballot.
“We have drilled our workers on making sure to give out the right ballots. They’re supposed to let the voter check in, and when they look in the e-book, hand them the proper ballot,” said Lisa Leonard, a Democrat representative on the local board of elections.
Porter said they became aware of the error at the end of the day Thursday. The local board of elections then spent Thursday through Saturday contacting the state board and the coding provider and going through the steps to ensure this was being fixed as soon as possible.
