Recently, Nodaway County and the rest of the counties in Missouri were notified of changes to ballot language of the Amendment 6 question and also the possible challenge to Amendment 3. Election services were completed except for shipping the ballots for election day. That meant all absentee ballots and regular ballots had been printed and all electronic testing had been completed. All federal and state deadlines had been met to produce ballots for the military deadline of September 19 as well as regular absentee voting of September 23. Ballot challenges in the court system were not complete. Unfortunately, the challenge to Amendment 6 was approved which altered the original ballot language for that issue. Therefore, all election products must be destroyed and the process started over.
The estimate to redo the election process is 70 – 90 percent of the original election cost. For Nodaway County, that average cost is $25,000, now it will be between $42,500 – $47,500. The good – bad news is that according to Missouri Revised Statutes 116.195, “whenever the reprinting of a statewide ballot measure is necessary as a result of a court-ordered change to the ballot language for such measure, the costs of such reprinting shall be paid by the state.”
This also doesn’t allow for a future change to Amendment 3 which is still being debated.
Full Article: Nodaway News » Ballot reprinting to cost the state.