Early Voting Jump Starts Ballot Printing
By Bill Esler
-- Graphic Arts Online, 10/6/2008 2:29:00 AM
As early voting gains in popularity around the country, hundreds of printers in local jurisdictions began producing batches of absentee and early-vote ballots, increasingly printed digitally, in
some cases on demand. In Arizona's Maricopa County, Runbeck Graphics mailed 666,000 early ballots Oct. 2, reports the Arizona Republic. More than 1,400 versions of the ballots are prepared, to account for local issues in various jursidictions in the county. Runbeck Graphics, Tempe-based publishers of Southwest Graphics magazine, have been producing the ballots for 16 years, also handling the mail ins and recording data for the county voter roles. Each is personalized to the voter requesting it, the process of production handled with a Pitney Bowes ReliaVote machine. Early ballots and later, absentee ballots are produced by Runbeck, with a legal mandate they be mailed within 48 hours of requests.Koke Printing, Eugene, OR, certified to produce the conventional ballots for Lane county, finished its work last month. The $70,000 contract specifies 175 versions of 200,000 ballots must be run on dust-free index stock so they will be consistently scannable by ballot counting machines. The ballot run, which must be completed in a 10-day window, is handled by the firm's Heidelberg presses. Koke, which has had the contract for more than 25 years, will ship the run Oct. 17, reports the local Register-Guard newspaper.
The rising popularity of mail-in and early voting among the nation's 3,300 counties has created a market for automated systems for mail inserter systems with stringent controls. Broward County spent $1.8 million on its ReliaVote System in the fall of 2007, replacing 100 workers that stuffed ballots by hand.
Ballot production can be frought with controversy, understandably so given the customer base. Frequently, ballot runs are halted as courts settle disputes on candidate names and order of presentation. This year, for example, Washington State Democrats sued to prevent a Republican candidate from listing his party affiliation as "GOP" rather than the formal party name. The presses were held up as the Secretary of State, and utlimately local courts, ruled the run could continue. In Madison County, IL, courts ordered election officials to tack an extra printed a notice explaining confusing language on a ballot proposition. In Boulder County, CO, poor register in folding required a rerun of 33,112 ballots. Integrated Voting Systems, Aurora, CO, will be paid $35,000 for the rerun, reports the Longmont-Times-Call. The ballots will be inserted with 80,000 ballots going to voters who requested early ballots.
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