Updated as story develops: St. Louis County鈥檚 municipal elections got off to a rocky start on Tuesday, with many polling places quickly running out of ballots. An appeals court extended voting until 9 p.m., but the decision came late. Shortly after 5 p.m., Circuit Judge Maura B. McShane denied a request to extend voting. In a hand-written order, the presiding judge in the county said "the court denies petitioners' request and doesn't believe it has authority to extend the hours."
In an email, Eric Fey, Democratic director of the St. Louis County Board of Elections, said, "Any ballots cast after 7:00 pm as a result of the court order will not be counted tonight."
But a message on the board of elections website told of another problem:
鈥淯nfortunately the writ was not issued until 7:30 p.m. after many of the polling locations were closed and secured. Attempts are being made to contact the locations in hopes of having them reopen, however, if voters are unable to access their polling location they should proceed to the board of elections office.鈥�
Fey had earlier told 漏 2024 外网天堂 that anywhere from 30 to 35 locations ran out of paper ballots. That number obviously increased as the day went on. The relatively short gap between the presidential primary and the municipal election
That means paper ballots were the only option for various mayoral, city council and tax proposition elections throughout the county.
鈥淲e sent an incorrect amount of ballots to these various locations. We are sending extra ballots to each polling place as we receive more from our printer," Fey wrote in an email. "We are in the process of drafting the appropriate documents to ask the court to extend voting hours."
Secretary of State Jason Kander, who is also a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said that his office would launch an immediate review of the ballot shortages.
"The fact that they ran out of ballots today is unacceptable," Kander said.
A statement from Gov. Jay Nixon said:
鈥淓nsuring elections are run freely, fairly and effectively is one of government鈥檚 most important and fundamental responsibilities. What is occurring in St. Louis County is inexcusable. The St. Louis County Board of Elections, and particularly its two directors, must rectify these mistakes, explain how they occurred, and be held accountable for this unacceptable failure.鈥�
Problems widespread
The shortage appeared to be occurring across the entire county. For instance: was out of ballots at 8 a.m. Moline Acres And KSDK- TV reported that,
St. Louis County Councilwoman Hazel Erby, D-University City, said she started receiving telephone calls early in the morning about polling places running out of ballots. She said she鈥檚 heard about shortages in University City and Berkeley, two jurisdictions that are holding highly contested municipal elections.
(Erby also said she's received reports that some polling places in her council district received incorrect ballots. Fey said in an e-mail that "we haven鈥檛 received any credible calls about ballots in the wrong location. We just sent too few ballots to many locations.")
Erby said that she would be in favor of keeping county polling places open past 7 p.m. to make sure people get to vote.
鈥淚f the machines could not be programmed to function this close after the March primary, then why weren鈥檛 we prepared with the number of ballots that we needed?鈥� Erby said. 鈥淵ou would think that they would have had more than enough ballots if they knew that the machines would not be working today. That doesn鈥檛 make sense to me. It just seems like it鈥檚 a matter of preparation.鈥�
This isn鈥檛 the first time St. Louis County polling places have run out of ballots. During the 2014 midterm election cycle, That was roughly 20 percent of the county鈥檚 444 polling places. (It's worth noting that Fey's predecessor as Democratic elections director, former state Sen. Rita Days, )
Erby, who has been a Democratic committeewoman for many years, said she鈥檚 been noticing inefficiencies on the election board for some time.
鈥淚鈥檓 going to a request a Committee of the Whole, because I want an explanation as to why this happened,鈥� said Erby, referring to a committee hearing the St. Louis County Council holds to discuss specific problems within county government. 鈥淚t would be a little bit different if the voter turnout was huge and it happened toward the end of the day. But [roughly] an hour? My phone started ringing at 7:15. That鈥檚 crazy.鈥�
Erby emphasized that the election board should always be prepared with enough paper ballots.)
St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger said he was "boiling" when he started hearing reports of ballot shortages.
"As elections have had difficulties, I have been vocal, and I have spoken out," Stenger said. "It troubles me. This is a situation that they need to straighten out and they need to straighten it out immediately."
Though St. Louis County pays for elections, the members of the Elections Board are appointed by the state.
At 9 p.m., the St. Louis Board of Election website had 78.8 percent of votes counted (all ballot issues were winning) and the county website had nothing posted.
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