Voters' confidence shaken

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As expected, the review of Weber County's General Election voting by the American Civil Liberties Union discovered various mistakes and potholes. There were 1,735 provisional ballots cast in the Nov. 6 election, and eventually 516 of those were disqualified.

Though the ACLU has not released a detailed report, it discovered the usual suspects at the root of the problem -- the very reasons poll workers and critics of the Weber County clerk/auditor's office had been alleging all along: provisional ballots filled out in pencil rather than ink, ballots with no signatures, voters given the wrong ballots and voters who could not produce adequate identification.

There's no word yet on whether or not, as some poll workers have claimed, the voter registry was outdated and/or inaccurate.

In Ogden there were lists containing 150 voter challenges presented by supporters of incumbent Mayor Matthew Godfrey, but the errors in provisional balloting happened inside and outside Ogden's boundaries. Besides, the 150 names represent less than 10 percent of the total provisionals cast.

No one has yet heard a public explanation from Weber County Clerk/Auditor Alan D. McEwan. Maybe the ACLU's report, when it is made public, will smoke him out.

This is important because Weber County voters cannot have confidence in a system so vulnerable to error -- from the sound of it, the fault of various contributing factors. Weber County voters deserve answers and solutions. To date, all they've received is silence.

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