The Miami County Board of Elections last week discussed voter registration system problems and overturned its vote rejecting petitions by Phil Cox of Tipp City to run for Republican Central Committee.

Cox, a Monroe Township trustee, met with the board Jan. 13 to explain an omission on his petitions, which the board rejected during petition certification in December.

Cox said he didn’t think he needed to fill out the section because he was circulating the petitions himself.

The board reviewed the petitions and requirements before deciding the law requires the potential candidate to have “substantial” compliance versus strict compliance when it comes to that section of the candidate petition.

Board member Jose Lopez said Cox had included information requested in the section in question earlier in the petition making him in substantial compliance with regulations.

The board asked elections staff if any other petitions were rejected for the same reason as those filed by Cox. Petitions of one other candidate, Mary Buechter of Piqua also for Republican Central Committee, were reviewed.

The board then voted to accept the petitions of both candidates.

Board member Robert Huffman Jr. thanked Cox for bringing his question before the board. “I think we just missed this,” Huffman said.

In other business Jan. 13, the board discussed issues with the voter registration system with elections Director Bev Kendall, Deputy Director Eric Morgan and representatives of the county IT department.

Kendall explained that the office began experiencing errors in the voter registration system Dec. 22. Matt Watkins, IT director, said the office is working with software vendor Triad to attempt to identify the problem, but has not yet been successful.

Huffman pointed out the voter registration system is needed for the office to print poll books and other voter information for the March primary.

Lopez said the office might need to buy another system, which Morgan said would cost around $21,000.

Lopez asked staff and the IT personnel to contact the other potential vendor to see how soon new software could be installed and how long it would take to transfer voter information to a new system.

“We have to do this thing right by the primary,” Lopez said.