“You’re tax dollars are paying for printers to work overtime this weekend. 89,000 ballots for Madison school’s May 24th referendum contain wrong information, and it has created quite a mess. . . .”
Story continues on the Web site of Channel 15.
2 thoughts on “Ballot Mess Could Be Big Referenda Problem”
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Amazing!
The key is the cost of $30,000, now! Paid by who? MMSD immediately, and of course, the taxpayers, regardless of fault.
It certainly could have been MMSD staff, city clerk staff, or private agencies hired to prepare the language etc.
If close, then absentee ballots will have to be counted — a likely scenario. Then what? Legal arguments as to whether the votes on items #2, and #3 should be counted, the intent of the voters, and whether a preliminary count of the ballots change the referenda results.
This really is a mindboggling turn of events. I have made my own share of errors on print jobs, and understand how easy it is to send something to press without catching typos or one- word mistakes.
What I find amazing here is that it would appear that there was no process through which MMSD proofed the ballots BEFORE they went to press. One would think that, given all of the sturm and drang over we must have this referendum or face draconian cuts, and after the passionate debates over how the questions would be worded, the ballots would be important enough to have someone read through the wording at least once.
That this is being passed off as “not my fault” and the ballots will be correct by Tuesday once more begs the question of responsibility and cost.
Anyone want to put money on whether the district will hire another outside investigator to figure out what happened?