Ballot Hickey Disrupts Election

Just a few days before the judging of the In-Print 2012 contest begins, it's interesting to learn how something as "minor" as a hickey on a printed ballot caused major problems for poll workers in Mobile, Ala.

Just one tiny donut-shaped white mark on one of the black security markings along the side of the ballot—markings that tell the electronic machines whether to count that ballot—forced poll workers to count thousands of ballots by hand.

As reported on al.com, the hickeys appeared only on Republican primary ballots for precincts within the Mobile County Commission District 3. After noticing that machines were rejecting some ballots as they were scanned in, poll workers, along with probate court staff and Mobile County sheriff’s deputies, worked until 4 a.m. to count about 3,000 ballots by hand.

The printing was done by Interstate Printing & Graphics of Mobile, al.com reports. The company was paid $150,000 for the ballots, office supplies and signs that were used at the polls.

It just goes to show that even simple black-and-white jobs deserve a quality check. Read the full story here.