MOUNT VERNON — The March 4 election went extremely well, said Belinda Lanning, deputy director of the Knox County Board of Elections. Despite power outages and inclement weather, things went smoothly.
Because of the power outages, several machines shut down, said Lanning. This prompted an emergency meeting of the board of elections, where it was decided that if the voting machines’ backup batteries continued to malfunction, paper ballots would be used. According to Lanning, all of the voting machines have backup batteries; nevertheless, a small number did not function properly.
Lanning also said that despite the loss of power at approximately 20 precincts, there were reports of people who lived nearby bringing lanterns and flashlights to polling stations, so that voters and elections workers would have enough light to vote and assist voters during the overcast election day.
Although paper ballots were made available at all polling stations as required by law, most locations in Knox County did not have voters requesting to use the paper ballots. According to Lanning, the official count from the election will not be announced by the board of elections until 10 days after the election. At that time, an official number of voters who requested paper ballots will also be made public.
Lanning said the post office was a great asset to the board of elections leading up to the election. She said that close to 4,000 absentee ballots were mailed in, and workers at the post office delivered them all in a timely manner. At times, said Lanning, post office workers even helped correct mistakes in addresses.
Lanning said she was glad to hear that voters braved the rain, wind and lack of electricity to make it out to the polls.
“Good for them,” she said.
