Hamilton County Commission agenda session -- July 31, 2008

The Hamilton County Commission likely will pay $73,228 to print ballots for the Aug. 7 elections, including about 216,000 ballots that had to be reprinted after their initial versions had mistakes.

On Thursday, the County Commission set the ballot-cost item on its agenda for its meeting on Aug. 6. The ballots already have been ordered and are being printed.

Hamilton County Election Commissioner Joe Rowe said Thursday that management should not have let the second error occur after officials discovered the first mistake.

“It should not have happened the second time,” he said. “I’ve heard many concerns being expressed about the wastefulness of this whole process.”

Mr. Rowe said the mistake was “unacceptable.” He said oversight for the ballots used to be shared between the county and the state. When that responsibility shifted completely to the local election commission in June, he said, not enough was done to ensure the transition process took place without hiccups.

“I am extremely disappointed that we had to spend that amount of money, and even more so disappointed that it happened twice,” he said.

Last month, county election officials had to reprint 140,000 ballots for the county’s Aug. 7 election after the U.S. Senate race was omitted from both Democratic and Republican ballots. Officials then discovered they had to reprint 71,500 GOP ballots because the name of Teresa Sheppard of Luttrell, Tenn., a primary challenger to U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., accidentally was left off during the first reprinting.

At the time of the printing error, county Election Administrator Bud Knowles said paper ballots cost about 17 or 18 cents apiece. At that rate, the 140,000 ballots would cost between $23,800 and $25,200.

According to an invoice attached to Thursday’s resolution, the Mid-West Printing Co. of Sapulpa, Okla., reprinted the 71,500 GOP ballots for a cost of $16,502.50. The second print run for the 140,000 ballots amounted to $22,936.50, according to the invoice.

The print run of the original ballots cost $30,445.50.

With freight costs, the total money spent on Aug. 7 election ballots will total $73,228.01, records show. The commission’s resolution called the costs “economically fair” and within budget.

“We don’t have any choice in it, we’ve got to do that,” said Commission Finance Committee Chairman Curtis Adams said after the meeting.

Charlotte Mullis-Morgan, chief deputy election administrator for Hamilton County, said the reprints would not cause delays to the elections, and that higher scrutiny would ensure the mistake would not happen again.

“It’s not what we wanted but we’re going to be OK with it,” she said.

The commission will implement a new system of checks and balances to try to prevent future mistakes, Mr. Knowles said at the time of the printing error.

The employee responsible for the mistakes was reassigned.

Mr. Adams said the commission still had confidence in the elections commission.

“They’re so good on everything else,” he said.