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County still uncertain over vote Although the county released final, unofficial results Friday, as many as 5,000 ballots could be left still uncounted. "We always have an issue when we are running the ballots through the computer," said County Clerk Kathy Beckett. "We have a bunch that are kicked out for one reason or another." This year, though, the county is facing an unprecedented number of these "problem children." In addition to the ballots rejected by the machines because they were marked with pen instead of pencil, or because of small tears, the county also has a number of ballots that haven�t been signature-verified because the voters hadn�t yet been entered into the county�s computers. The count has also taken longer because of the sheer size of the two-part, or dual, ballot. The total number of these uncounted ballots is still uncertain, Beckett said. There are about 3,400 of the ballots that were kicked out of the machines and a few more trays of ballots with unverified signatures sitting in the county�s vault, Beckett said. In the past when final unofficial results were posted, there were far fewer ballots left to be counted: usually about 500. That�s because it was much simpler to determine the votes with the poll punch-style voting. Also, this year, the county�s computers kicked out a lot more ballots than normal, Beckett said. "We were having some difficulties," Beckett said. "We were running three different scanners and we had problems with all three breaking down." Beckett conceded that the large number of outstanding ballots could sway some election results in small cities: "And that�s why we don�t call the election until we have final, official results." She said the remaining ballots would be counted next week. The county will release final, official ballot numbers � the absolute final tally � by the state�s deadline of Nov. 27. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.