By Jake Rigdon

Medford - About 27 percent of all votes cast in Medford during the Nov. 2 election were not counted because a programmer improperly set the device that records the ballots, city and Taylor County officials say.

Medford uses a voting machine purchased in 1999 that electronically counts the votes. The machine requires a software programmer from Election Systems & Software to program it for partisan elections, which the programmer failed to do, said County Clerk Bruce Strama.

That programming failure meant that the votes of everyone who voted straight ticket - meaning anyone who voted only for candidates of a single party - were not counted. In all, about 600 of 2,256 ballots cast were not counted, Strama said.

Medford is the only municipality in Wisconsin where more than 1 percent of the votes were not tallied, said Kevin Kennedy, the executive secretary of the State Elections Board.

"There's really nothing voters can do at this point," Kennedy said. "But they need to be assured that the city, county and state are making sure that this never happens again." The State Elections Board did not know about the situation in Medford until learning about it this week from a Wausau Daily Herald reporter. Kennedy said a representative from his office will oversee a recount of the votes in Medford on Monday with a different vote-counting machine that will tally the straight-party votes.

Strama said this had never before happened in Medford. However, none of the county seats were contested in the November election, he said, so the mistake had no impact on local races. In the presidential race, President George W. Bush received 906 votes in Medford compared with Democratic hopeful John Kerry's 692 votes, but that does not include the votes that did not count.

The news was disheartening to Medford voters.

"I think (the city and county) has a lot to work on," said Frank Ellner, 39, who said he voted in the last election. Ellner, a supervisor at a windows and doors manufacturer, said he has been dissatisfied with how elections have been run in Medford.

The news comes less than a month before the April 5 race, in which four City Council members are up for re-election. Strama said that because the cause of the problem has been discovered, an error like that shouldn't happen again.

"I am also certain that (the city clerk) will be extra cautious in the future, as will I," Strama said.

After the election, Strama said, votes are tabulated by scanning equipment, with totals verified by the Board of Canvass. The board, however, verifies only that the number reported to the State Elections Board is what was tallied by the scanner (except for write-ins, which are tallied manually). In the case of the November election, the scanner simply did not pick up straight ticket votes, and no one noticed the discrepancy between the number of voters who cast ballots and the number of votes that actually were tallied.

Medford and Taylor County officials have been told by Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software that the city will be reimbursed for the costs of setting up the vote-counting machine in the fall because the program was faulty.

The machine Medford uses is the only one of its kind still in use in Wisconsin, according to the State Elections Board. The machine is left over from a merger between American Information Systems and Business Records Corp. in 1997. The merger led to the formation of Election Systems & Software.

A spokeswoman with Election Systems & Software said the company takes full responsibility for the error.

The gap in votes first was discovered by Practical Political Consulting, which operates in the state as Wisconsin Voter Lists. The firm discovered the discrepancy by comparing the number of voters who showed up at the polls with the number of votes for the presidency. Practical Political Consulting is an independent firm that sells voter lists to political candidates.

Practical Political Consulting backs the Democratic party, said owner Mark Grebner, 52. The group claims to maintain the only statewide voter file for Wisconsin.

"We're interested in how the whole state elections system works, or in (Wisconsin's case), doesn't work," he said. "When we're building lists of people who voted, and something like (Medford's situation) stands out that much, then it's time for my guys to get on the phone with clerks and (ask questions)." The city of Mosinee recently disputed data compiled by the group. The consulting firm said records provided by Mosinee listed 2,157 voters and 2,239 ballots cast for president. In other words, more votes were cast than the number of people who actually voted, according to Practical Political Consulting.

But Mosinee City Clerk Bruce Jamroz said the gap was only four, with 2,247 people voting and 2,251 ballots cast. The figures the consulting firm originally received were inaccurate, Jamroz said, adding that the four-person gap likely was due to human error.