Votes can't be retrieved

Beth Blake

BEAUFORT – The manufacturer of the county’s voting system told The News-Times Thursday there’s no way to retrieve the missing 4,530 votes cast in early voting for the Nov. 2 election.

“I wish they could, but I don’t believe they can,” said Jack Gerbel, president and owner of the Dublin, Calif.-based UniLect Company that makes the Patriot voting system the county has used since 1996.

“We do feel bad about it,” said Mr. Gerbel.

He admitted error on the part of the company when its chief software engineer misinformed the county that the unit used for early voting would handle up to 10,500 votes, when in fact it could only handle 3,005, resulting in the lost votes.

A total of 7,537 residents voted one stop during the early absentee voting period for the Nov. 2 election.

After polls closed at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night, election workers received 33 of the 34 precincts. While waiting for Peletier’s precinct, which voted until 10 p.m., election workers discovered numbers weren’t matching up between computerized printout results and tallies for absentees, no excuse ballots and Election Day totals.

Near midnight , County Board of Elections Director Ed Pond announced the votes were lost.

Read More >>