Troublesome ballot machine will be retired
A ballot-counting machine in northern Idaho that caused long delays on Tuesday will be retired, the Bonner County Clerk says.
“I’m never using that machine again,” Marie Scott told the Bonner County Daily Bee.
The 13-year-old Election Systems & Software Model 150 optical-scan ballot reader jammed on election night because of hundreds of moist ballots, delaying the count from the county’s 33 precincts until early Wednesday.
Scott said the ballots were in weather-resistant metal boxes, but still got wet.
She said she was on the phone with technicians five times, but each adjustment to the machine only lasted a short time before it again developed problems.
Scott told The Associated Press on Friday that despite the problems, “I have every confidence in the final tallies we got for all the races.”
Scott said she was reluctant to get rid of the machine before Tuesday because it had performed well in previous elections and had been checked by a technician from the Omaha, Neb.-based manufacturer in the week leading up to Tuesday’s vote.
She also said it worked fine when she ran test ballots through it.
Workers called the machine the Terminator because it spit out vote totals that, in some cases, ended an official’s term in office.
Scott said the machine will be kept on hand for a time to comply with Idaho secretary of state rules. It will then be traded for a newer model.
The machine cost about $28,000 when it was purchased in 1995. Scott said a replacement machine could cost $60,000. She said a grant from the secretary of state’s office could help pay for a new machine.
Weippe, Idaho
Cause of lumber mill fire eludes investigators
Fire investigators say they aren’t confident they will be able to determine what caused a fire that partly destroyed a lumber mill in north-central Idaho.
Deputy State Fire Marshal Don Strong says a lot of things could have started the fire at the Empire Lumber Co. mill on Tuesday.
Strong says the fire appears to have started under a machine that cuts slabs of rough lumber.
He says the fire burned intensely in that area and there were no reports of problems with machinery.
Mill superintendent Kenny Walter says he expects the mill’s 40 employees to remain working.
Kamiah, Idaho
Saturated market forces Three Rivers to close
A north-central Idaho sawmill plans to shut down operations indefinitely because of a glut of cheap lumber and falling sales.
Three Rivers Timber, the largest employer in Kamiah, plans to idle about 80 workers in the first week of December.
Herb Hazen, president of Three Rivers Timber, said, “Trying to push lumber into an already filled market really makes no operating sense.”
He did not know when workers might be able to return to their jobs.