By Mark Berglund

An unofficial recount of ballots from the 2004 City of Medford general election confirmed an undercount of more than 600 votes. The recount showed little change in the margin of victories.

Diane Lowe, an election specialist with the State Elections Board, Taylor County Clerk Bruce Strama and Medford City Clerk Virginia Brost conducted the unofficial count on Monday at the Taylor County Courthouse. The City of Medford ballots were unsealed and counted mechanically with the Taylor County scanner. While the results of Monday's recount are interesting, they have no impact on the vote totals that were certified in November.

"Essentially we are trying to figure out what went wrong and keep it from happening again," Lowe said.

The City of Medford problem has been isolated to a software programming error by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) prior to the fall election. The City uses an ES&S M100 optical-scan machine with the 3.0 version of Firmware software.

"I've always been confident in this one. It allows second chance voting and is easy to operate," Brost said. Strama is working with ES&S on compensation City of Medford costs for the November election.

ES&S is a privately-owned company based in Omaha, Neb. It bills itself as the world's largest and most experienced provider of total election management solutions with more than 74,000 systems installed worldwide. ES&S supported more than 5,700 elections in the United States in 2004. The company said 58.4 million voters are supported by ES&S equipment, accounting for more than 50 percent of the vote in the last four major elections in the United States.

Practical Political Consulting of East Lansing, Mich. discovered the glitch in a routine check of Presidential election vote totals against the information it collects from poll lists. The company, which is known as Wisconsin Voter Lists in this state, specializes in providing information to candidates and both parties about voting information and patterns.

The City budgeted for replacement of the ES&S equipment before the 2004 election, but decided to wait for recommendations and firm approval of the new equipment from the State Elections Board before proceeding. Brost thinks the replacement cost will be in the $5,000 ballpark, but is unsure of how Americans With Disabilities Act requirements will affect the purchase price.

The City paid $5,200 in 2000 for the current ES&S equipment.

The next City of Medford election is April 5, when voters choose four City Council members, and help select three Medford School District Board members and the next State Superintendent of Schools. There will also be an advisory referendum in Taylor County. A non-partisan primary election was held February 15 with no apparent problems.

The City's public regular test of the voting equipment will take place March 29 at 1 p.m. at City Hall. Lowe said equipment used in the vote counting process needs federal approval before being independently tested by the National Association of State Election Boards. The Wisconsin State Elections Board tests the equipment for final approval.

The recount showed the problem appeared to be with the programming for the city's voting equipment for straight party voters.

Republican President George W. Bush gained 326 votes in the recount while Democratic challenger John Kerry gained 272. The official results showed Bush with 56.69 percent of the City vote. Because Kerry lost a larger percentage of his votes, Bush's unofficial winning percentage was 56.10 percent in the recount. Bush and Kerry won 2,196 of 2,256 possible votes in the recount, an increase of 598 votes from the official results.

The election for the 87th State Assembly District seat saw similar changes. Republican incumbent Mary Williams gained 332 votes to a 274-vote gain by Democratic challenger Mary Satterwhite. Williams' winning percentage went from 59.31 percent to 59.03 percent. The two combined for 2,196 votes in the recount, an increase of 606 votes from the official results.

Medford has four voting districts. District 1 saw the closest totals in both races. Bush beat Kerry 233-215 in the certified results, but the margin closed to 312-306 in the recount. The Better Life Party candidate Ralph Nader picked up the other six votes in the recount, meaning no candidate took more than 50 percent of the vote in District 1. The certified results show Nader with six votes. Bush won at least 57.5 percent of the vote in the other three districts in both the certified and recount totals.