Fluoride ballots will be hand-counted

HUMBOLDT — Ballots expressing the preference of Humboldt residents regarding whether the city should fluoridate its water supply will be hand counted, saving the city about $2,000, City Administrator Larry Tucker said during the Humboldt City Council meeting Monday night.
A printing glitch by the county has the yes and no ovals on the ballot, to be blackened for voting, too dark to be read accurately by the vote tallying machine.
The county offered to hand count the ballots, or reprint them, whichever the city preferred.
The kicker was that the tallying machine had not yet been programmed for the fluoride issue, and that programming, it turns out, carries the bulk of the cost of an election.
The council opted to allow the county to hand count the approximately 1,500 ballots to be mailed out Sept. 1 for the special issue election. In doing so, cost of the election was dropped form $2,800 to $800.
The ballots will be counted Sept. 8, the final day they can be returned to the city to be counted.