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Different story next election, clerk vows Beckett will push for space, staff and software By Dani Dodge There�s no more Mrs. Nice Guy in the county clerk�s office. County Clerk Kathy Beckett says she�s going to get tough to solve the problems that made Jackson County one of the last in the country to count its votes in November. The elections office needs more space, more staff and more software. "In every single element of the election, we didn�t have enough space to conduct it properly," Beckett said. "We don�t have room for more terminals. It was hard to bring on additional people because you didn�t have the anywhere to put them." And Beckett won�t let the budget cycle go by without making the needs known loud and clear to county budgeters. "It�s my job to stay in their face," she said. "I think you will see a new me." Beckett�s management of the elections department came under fire last month after it took her department 11 days to issue a final ballot count in the state�s first vote-by-mail presidential election. Problems included computer glitches that slowed the signature verification and the vote counting to a snail�s pace. Also, 20,000 ballots went out to voters without the county�s juvenile justice bond measure on them. The criticism, though, also sparked a huge wave of support for Beckett, who has been the county�s clerk since 1983. She expects to run for re-election in 2002. Her advocates praise Beckett�s fair and conscientious oversight of the biggest election this county has ever seen. They point out that several other counties also had delays. Beckett said she hopes to have the problems ironed out before the next big contest: the May 2002 gubernatorial primary. But it will take money. She�s not sure yet how much. But she does have her eye on some of the funds coming to the county to replace lost timber revenues. "Even though we�ve been told that money is earmarked and spent already, I�ve been told for so many years that there�s no money to do anything, it�s falling on deaf ears," Beckett said. "We desperately need to address this department." Jackson County Commissioner Ric Holt said commissioners will listen carefully to Beckett come budget time. He said she�s talked to the commission in the past about her need for more space, but there�s never been enough money to address the issue. Holt said, though, that the county can�t go through another election like November�s. "She certainly needs more space, that�s no rocket science deal," Holt said. "I don�t think any options will be overlooked. As we know from Florida, elections are serious stuff." County Administrator Sue Slack said she has asked the county�s information technology director and the county budget officer to work with Beckett and elections deputy Donna O�Connor to come up with a comprehensive report on what needs to be fixed in the county�s elections department. That report will include financial estimates. "The good news for Kathy is we won�t have a great big election like this for a long time,� Slack said. "So it gives us some planning time." Slack said the budget committee will begin looking at financial requests in the spring. But she doesn�t expect that federal money coming to the county to replace lost timber revenues will really help too much. "There�s ongoing expenses we haven�t dealt with," Slack said. "It�s up in the air how much will be available for anything." Beckett said she believes November�s election went as well as could be expected with the computer problems and space limitations she faced. Although her struggles to fix the computer system are continuing, the first major new problem she plans to tackle in the wake of this election is the space problem. The office is the same size as it was 20 years ago, although voter registration has more than doubled. "Basically, I�d like to see a new election center," Beckett said. "We need office space in front and a gear-up area in the back. "We need space that will be flexible enough for the county to use it for other needs and functions like meetings." Beckett said she�s talked to Slack about both the Medford Library space and the old Safeway building the county just bought to house community corrections. Neither is ideal, but they are options. With more space, Beckett could address the need for more computer terminals and more staff. The county had trouble with a new election management system program that it got in August, and then had to cobble together part of the old computer system and part of the new one. Among the problems with this patched-together system is that the no more than a few hundred signatures could be verified an hour, and instead of counting votes 7,000 an hour as expected, it was more like 2,000 ballots an hour, Beckett said. Beckett is working with the Nebraska-based company ES&S to solve the problems. But in addition to making the current computers work, she said the county needs more computers terminals to process ballots efficiently. The county also needs more people, Beckett said. Currently, the elections department has three full-time employees with Beckett overseeing both them as well as the other county clerk functions such as issuing marriage licenses, recording mortgages and archiving the county�s historical records. Beckett said the county needs at least one or two full-time workers to oversee the elections process. "Obviously we don�t have enough top supervisory level to conduct an election of this magnitude," she said. "But, day-to-day work, there�s just an awful lot going on now. We are continually updating the voter registration every day, and it�s grown so we have just two people working on that full time." Both the staff shortage and the computer problems contributed to the ballot gaffe that left the 20,000 of the 110,000 ballots without a juvenile justice bond measure on them. Beckett said the stretched staff was so focused on trying to make the computers work before the election that they failed to proofread the ballots carefully enough. "We should have spent more time proofing the ballot � we let some of the problems happening with the new system take valuable time away from that," Beckett said. "We learned a huge lesson." During elections, the county hires part-timers to fill the personnel gap. This year there were eight. But many of the part-timers left the job before election day when they were offered full-time positions elsewhere. That meant the county had to train new part-timers over and over � with too few elections workers to begin with. The space problems meant the county couldn�t bring in enough election processing boards to open all the ballots, and prepare them for counting. The elections boards must consist of four people of differing party affiliations sitting at a table together � but here was enough room for only 12 cramped tables. And that�s with several stuffed into the coffee break room. But Beckett said some criticisms seem unfounded. She was criticized for not having ballot drop boxes out early in the election, but notes that it didn�t help other counties. "We had counties that opened drop sites when ballots went out," she said. "They found all their ballots came in late too. That�s not to say we can�t open ours earlier, but this was such a complicated election and people didn�t feel comfortable voting their ballots right away." Beckett concludes that despite the problems, she got her job done. And she�s proud of the work she and her staff did. "Our job was to assist the voters," Beckett said. "We had a 78 percent turnout in this election and we were there to assist the voters. We did that. And that�s the bottom line." Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.