Clerk’s Office Avoids Problems, Internet Outage, On Election Day

By Mark Evans

mevans@stegenherald.com

Two Mercer County, Ohio precincts ran out of ballots election night, while a vote-counting machine in  Wisconsin ran out of ink, delaying that precinct’s vote tallying.

In Ste. Genevieve County, though, even an area-wide internet outage and a huge voter turnout did not thwart the election process Nov. 3.

“I think it went really well,” County Clerk Sue Wolk said. “We had a lot of phone calls, where people had moved, so we just had to get their address updated in the system and tell them where they should be voting.”

Wolk and her staff work with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and his staff to make sure contingency plans are in place. One was to have a backup internet source on hand. This paid off when Charter Spectrum suffered an outage in Perry and Ste. Genevieve Counties for several hours.

“Luckily, we had the backup with AT&T, and it just rolled right over and just kept going,” Wok said. “Some people thought with us losing internet, it would affect their voting, but none of the machines are connected to the internet. You’ve just got to have electricity for them to work.”

There was also no issue with a shortage of ballots. Wolk had correctly anticipated a large voter turnout.