Officials say general election will be better

Plans include increased training for judges, technicians

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006

by Judson Berger

Staff Writer

The Prince George’s County Board of Elections plans to hire more personnel and provide more training prior to the Nov. 7 General Election to prevent a repeat of the errors and technical difficulties that marred the Sept. 12 primary.

‘‘Human error [is] going to be a factor in every election,” said board attorney Robert McGinley. ‘‘Is this one we’re proud of? No.”

Board president John DiStefano said he felt the blame for the primary election problems could be spread out.

‘‘It’s not one single thing [that went wrong],” DiStefano said.

One of the problems during the Sept. 12 primaries was that as many as 18 technicians failed to show, leaving the 206 precincts with about 190 technicians. After the polls closed, 136 of the precincts were unable to transmit their data electronically, leading to major delays.

The board was required to file a corrective action plan with the state last week. In their plan, they called for at least 220 technicians.

‘‘That’s backup,” election administrator Robert Antonetti said.

The board is requiring technicians and chief election judges to undergo even more training before the next election, as outlined in the corrective action plan.

County election officials encountered another problem last week when they collected 47 voter cards from 26 precincts that had not yet been counted. They began publicly tallying those results last Wednesday, eight days after the primary. The process took two more days.

‘‘This kind of incompetence breeds conspiracy theories, which causes people to have no confidence in the voting process,” said Mel Franklin, president of the Greater Marlboro Democratic Club, who called for firings.

But Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said last week that he has no intention of shaking up the leadership in the county.

‘‘There’s no time for recriminations,” he said.

Ehrlich blames much of the statewide problems on electronic voting machines and has suggested the state go back to paper ballots for the Nov. 7 election.

Antonetti said that would be a mistake.

‘‘We have too many darn changes as things go right now,” Antonetti said. ‘‘You cannot run an election with a new system every five weeks.”

In an e-mail to Antonetti from Pamela Gaines, the county board’s information technology manager, Gaines recommended putting technicians through three- to four-hour training sessions to review how to use the machines and how to transmit data.

Gaines also recommended technicians be sworn in to ‘‘re-emphasize their commitment to Prince George’s County Board of Elections and the election process.”

Compensation for the training session will be increased from $25 to $50. Technicians are paid $400 on Election Day.

‘‘I think that the primary was sort of a test election, which you had to have,” Antonetti said. ‘‘I don’t believe that all of the same problems will occur [on Nov. 7].”

E-mail Judson Berger atjberger@gazette.net.