I’m tired and today is my birthday. I wish there was enough time in the day for us to celebrate the love and care you have shown me today, Matthew, Liz, Jeremy, Paul, Carla, Catherine, George, Sachiko, Mark, Carey, Mandy, Sarah, and mom.1 Maybe next year.

In the meantime, some serious goings on and a post hopefully not too late regarding absentee ballots in Athens County.

Below are clickable thumbnails of the four-page absentee ballot for Athens 44 (each thumbnail links to a full-size image). Except for columns B and C on page three (3) which pertain to items for different precincts, people voting absentee in Athens County will use ballots identical to the one depicted below.

page 1	page 2
page 3	page 4

The problem with the ballot involves the bottom-right corner of page 1 and the top-left corner of page 2 which, together, comprise the ballot item “For Judge of the Court of Appeals (4th District).” The ballot item lists two candidates on opposite sides of the ballot sheet. Confused or inattentive voters who accidentally fill in bubbles for Roger L. Kline and William H. Harsha will produce invalid ballots that will be discarded

Solution

There are two ways to avoid this problem: 1) do not select any candidate “For Judge of the Court of Appeals” (that is, leave the item blank on both sides) or 2) choose either Roger L. Kline or William H. Harsha. The problem concerns layout as the following images make clear. (The detail images below can be are clickable links to images which show the context of each detail).

Choose either Kline or Harsha, or choose neither. DO NOT CHOOSE BOTH.
bottom-right corner of page 1 (page 2 on reverse)	top-left corner of page 2 (reverse of page 1)

As they say, “Vote early and vote often.”