Miami County’s Board of Elections continued preparations for the March 15 primary last week, agreeing to again contract with the West Milton Rotary for handling voting machines and continuing to work with a vendor on voter registration system problems.

The board first met Jan. 26 but had to reschedule until the next day because it did not have a quorum to conduct business.

At the Jan. 27 meeting the contract with Rotary to set up and then take down voting machines at polling places across the county was approved.

The organization, which uses the election work as a major fundraiser, will be paid $10,598. This is the same amount paid for the November election. The contract was approved contingent on the prosecutor’s office approval of contract language.

Other March election-related business at the meeting included:

- Board members proofed the wording on issues and candidate names for the ballot

- Notification from staff that the bond issue for a new stadium was removed from ballots, as requested by the Tipp City Exempted Village Schools Board of Education. The district will have a bond issue proposed for a new elementary school.

- Approved the ballot quantities for polling places and the distribution of voting machines, as proposed by staff.

- OK’d appointments of precinct election officials.

The board agreed to hold off buying additional software for absentee ballot processing/printing from Triad until problems with errors with the Triad voter registration system are resolved. The board previously approved an absentee ballot system, at a cost of $6,000, but it was not processed before the county closed its books for 2015, elections Director Bev Kendall said.

“Given the difficulties we have been having I would move to table that item,” board member Jose Lopez said. The board voted to delay the purchase.

The board Jan. 26 heard an update from Triad representatives about the problems experienced with voter registration software since Dec. 22. The board was told in mid-January that efforts continued in the attempt to identify what is causing errors. The system is used to prepare poll books for use by poll workers on Election Day.

Last week, the board was told efforts continue but the source of the problem has not been pinpointed.

Brett Rapp of Triad said Jan. 26 the system is operational and no data has been compromised. He said Triad employees are at the elections office daily and will remain until the office has several days of error free operations of the registration system.

The board at the earlier meeting had discussed looking into buying a new system in time for the primary. Elections staff said after the Jan. 27 meeting that there wasn’t time to buy and prepare a new system for March 15.

Rapp said the county was not being billed for the time Triad has spent working to solve the problem.

The board also delayed action on a proposal to hire a company to compile information on charge back costs of elections to the local entities. The costs would include poll workers, ballot bills and the Rotary contact, among other expenses.

Kendall said current election officials did no charge backs last year due to the lack of time and no experience. The cost proposed is $50 per precinct.

Lopez asked how much it would cost to have the charge backs done and how much would be collected.

Board member Dean Tamplin asked if the proposal was for one year or being proposed for future elections as well.

The board asked staff to provide more information on the proposal.

“Obviously our preference would be for you to do it so the county recoups more money. If we are not in the position to do that … would like to know how are the numbers going to break down,” board member Robert Huffman Jr. said.