(Photo: A young girl holds on to her father, who has packed and is ready to join the army, at a Cambodian military base in Oddar Meanchey province. He was one of too few who volunteered; in order to reach recruitment targets, local authorities forced others to enroll.)

By Isabelle Roughol and Eang Mengleng

Kok Morn commune, Oddar Meanchey province – Villagers in Oddar Meanchey province say they are being forced to join the army to meet recruitment demands set by the military.

Government and RCAF officials, however, say they are in no way endorsing such a recruitment process, which appears to be illegal.

An Oct 17 order from RCAF Commander-in-Chief Ke Kim Yan requested local officials to find 1,100 new soldiers in the province, though it does not say whether the men should be volunteers or draftees. Failing to find enough volunteers, at least one commune — Kok Morn in Banteay Ampil district — organized a lottery to select young men to be enrolled in the army, whether they wish it or not.

“It is illegal as far as I know to select soldiers [this way,] but I am a lower official so I have to do or obey the order from high officials,” Kok Morn commune chief Ourn Vy said by telephone Monday.

The commune found 12 volunteers but had been asked in a meeting with RCAF district and provincial commanders to find a total of 35, said Ourn Vy. A lottery was organized to pick 15 young men in each of the commune’s 18 villages, and a second lottery round on Oct 31 picked 23 of those men to join the RCAF, he said in an interview at his home Sunday.

“They needed soldiers in my commune so I started to select them by volunteering or by drawing a lottery,” he said.

The 12 volunteers and 23 draftees will be sent to RCAF district headquarters for training by Jan 31, Ourn Vy said. Ke Kim Yan’s order requests two more waves of recruits to join the military by April 30 and July 31, and more lotteries are likely to be organized, Ourn Vy added.

The men had no choice but to participate in the lottery, and if any of the 23 selected refuse to go, they will have to be forced, said Kok Morn commune clerk Vant Soth. Though villagers were clearly unhappy, none had yet lodged an official complaint, he added in an interview at his home Saturday.

However, Banteay Ampil district deputy RCAF commander Ou Sareun said he did not order commune officials to organize the obligatory lottery, and that the RCAF district headquarters would simply receive new recruits as they arrive according to Ke Kim Yan’s order.

Provincial Deputy Governor Yim Than said authorities were only planning to form militias at present, and that there was no plan at the provincial level to recruit soldiers.

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said the government did wish to recruit soldiers but not by force and that he could not confirm or deny the forced recruitment was taking place because he had not received any complaints.

“We cannot force the people to be in the army,” Khieu Kanharith said by telephone Monday, adding the conscription law passed in 2006 cannot be used to recruit soldiers because the government has not yet issued a sub-decree.

“If they are really forced to be in the army, they can complain to human rights organizations or to the UN or to the government office or to the members of the National Assembly representing them,” he added.

Minister of Defense Tea Banh declined to comment on the recruitment process.

Villagers involved in the lottery process said they feel helpless and confused.

“It is not fair at all,” said Lor Sinny, a 23-year-old farmer in Sing village, who is one of the young men selected. The father of one and only son to a widowed mother, Lor Sinny said he would prefer staying home to tend to the family’s two hectares.

Lamenting over his poor luck in the lottery, he wondered why only a few were forced to serve.

“I want all the youths aged 18 to 30 years old to go because it is our country, not just my country,” he said in an interview at his home Sunday.

Khum Oeum, a widow and mother of a 21-year-old selectee who also does not wish to become a soldier, said her son returned from the lottery meeting with the impression that there was no way out. She said she was not aware of any possibility to appeal the decision.

Khum Oeum expressed particular concern because her son, who works on construction sites, is the primary breadwinner for the family

“He runs the family like a father to feed his brothers and sisters,” Khum Oeum said, adding her other children might have to drop out of school when their older brother leaves.

(Photo above: A plume of smoke rises over Columbia’s East Campus neighborhood after a house exploded. 14 March 2008. By Isabelle Roughol.)

14 March 2008: A gas leak caused an explosion that leveled the house of two retirees.

Rescue workers take Merna Sneed, 84, to an ambulance that took her to University Hospital. Sneed was found in a pile of debris in her backyard; she had been blown out of her house at 308 McNab Drive by an explosion. She was in critical condition with severe burns over a large portion of her body and died three weeks later. (Photo by Isabelle Roughol/Columbia Missourian)

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL AND SEAN SPOSITO
Columbia Missourian

COLUMBIA — A neighbor burst into an elderly couple’s East Campus home after it exploded Friday and tried heroically to free a retired MU professor from the burning debris.

John “Jack” Kennedy, of 1809 Cliff Drive, was coming home in a shirt and jeans from a trip to the supermarket when he was halted by the shock wave from the explosion in a house two doors down, said his wife Nancy, 73.                                               

Residents blocks away said they too could feel the blast.

Debris was scattered anywhere from 100 to 150 feet away from the home, said Battalion Chief Steve Sapp.

“I was bringing in my groceries, and I hardly got to the step,” said Nancy Kennedy. “If you’ve ever lived in a war zone, you would know what it was.”

Her 80-year-old husband rushed past the homes that separated his from 308 McNab Drive where Merna and Carl Sneed lived.

By the time he arrived, Merna Sneed, 84, had been blown out of the house. Merna’s husband, Carl, was trapped between the first floor and the basement, Sapp said. The two-story home’s first floor had partially collapsed because of the heat and fire.

Chest deep in debris, Carl Sneed reached out and struggled to grasp Jack Kennedy’s hand, Kennedy told investigators.

“He tried a couple of times before the heat of the fire forced him to back away for his own personal safety,” Sapp said about Kennedy. “We’ll probably never know the exact condition (Carl) was in.”

Columbia firefighters arrived several minutes after Kennedy had been pushed out of the house by the intense heat at about 11:20 a.m. Kennedy suffered minor burns to his scalp.

AmerenUE and Columbia Water & Light employees were at the scene almost immediately after the firefighters.

By then, Sapp said, a plume of smoke was 20 to 30 feet high, thick, black smoke billowing into the sky.

Sapp said it was the first explosion of this magnitude in Columbia since the 1970s. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation. Natural gas among other possible causes are still being considered.

Rescue efforts were hampered by the narrowness of the street, Sapp said.

However, those issues were resolved within minutes.

“(Firefighting efforts) were futile after the first few minutes after we arrived,” Sapp said. “We went into rescue mode, but there was no way that firefighters” could get inside the building.

Columbia fire fighters Delwyn Duncan and Jeff Kaufmann went around to the back of the house only to find Merna Sneed trapped underneath debris.

They immediately rushed her to an ambulance and then to University Hospital. As of Friday night, she was still listed in critical condition in the hospital’s burn unit. According to a news release from the Columbia Fire Department, burns cover more than 30 percent of her body.

The heat was so powerful it burned the back of Columbia firefighter Ben Trutken’s ears, Sapp said.

The Columbia Fire Department successfully smothered the fire about an hour later.

Investigators found the body of Carl Sneed, 87, in the basement of the house.

Police were able to briefly interview Merna Sneed.

“(She’s) gone through some surgeries,” Sapp said. “It’s doubful that we’ll be able to talk to her at least for a day or so depending on how she is progressing.”

In the meantime, neighbors, family members, friends and rescue workers are feeling the effects of this tragedy.

“We’re saddened we couldn’t get to Carl earlier,” Sapp said. “Sometimes that’s the way things work out.”

The department planned to nominate Kennedy for the Citizen’s Heroism Award.

If you have information about the explosion or witnessed it, please call the Missourian news desk (573) 882-5720 or e-mail news@columbiamissourian.com.

The Missourian will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.

– Jonathon Braden, Lauren Fredman, Annie Harp and Matt Harris contributed to this report.

25 October 2007: A business owner says his state contracts were terminated unfairly.

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL
Columbia Missourian

A business owner who lost his state contracts after an immigration raid is suing Gov. Matt Blunt, two state agencies and their directors for breach of contract and violation of the business­man’s constitutional rights.

The suit, filed Thursday morning, also chal­lenges Blunt’s authority on immigration enforce­ment and alleges racial discrimination against the plaintiff, a native African who is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

K. “Sam” Asamoah-Boadu, the owner of Sam’s Janitorial Services in Jefferson City, alleges in the suit that the governor and state agencies overstepped the boundaries of state and federal law when they terminated his contracts to clean several state build­ings in the capital and barred him from bidding on other state contracts.

“It was basically putting an end to him professionally,” said David Moen, Asamoah-Boadu’s lawyer, who filed the suit in Cole County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit was filed against Blunt; the State of Missouri Office of Admin­istration; its commissioner, Michael Keathley; the Divi­sion of Purchasing and Mate­rials Management; and its director, James Miluski. The suit seeks reinstatement of Asamoah-Boadu’s contracts, access to future contracts, “fair and reasonable” actual damages and punitive dam­ages.

Gov. Blunt’s office issued a statement Thurs­day afternoon defending the governor’s actions against the contractor, which he said benefited Missourians.

The Missouri Office of Administration termi­nated Asamoah-Boadu’s contracts on March 6, after 25 of Sam’s Janitorial Services’ employees were detained on suspicion of having false docu­mentation in an immigration raid by U.S. Immi­gration and Customs Enforcement agents, Capitol Police and state law enforcement.

Eight of the 25 employees were indicted in federal court on charges of possessing false Social Security numbers and identification cards. Four were found guilty or pleaded guilty over the summer, according to the lawsuit.

“There’s no evidence at all, absolutely none, that Sam knew anything,” Moen said. “Lo and behold, four (employees) had fraudulently made documents that were really well made because they had fooled everybody.”

Asamoah-Boadu provided the Division of Purchasing and Capitol Police with copies of Social Security and Alien Registration cards for all non-U.S. citizen employees, the suit states. The agencies approved all employees and never raised any questions about their immigration status, according to the lawsuit.

The suit also challenges the legality of Blunt’s enforcing immigration law and issuing an execu­tive order that allows the state to take action against contractors who employ illegal immi­grants, knowingly or not.

“States don’t have the right to decide who immigrates to the U.S.; the federal government does. (Blunt) has decided that he’s going to enforce a new standard,” Moen said. “It would not be his windmill to joust with.”

Asamoah-Boadu also alleges he has been dis­criminated against because he was born in Ghana and is black, and because he chose to associate with Hispanics. His contracts, once terminated, were given to B&G Cleaning, a business that once hired three of the four work­ers convicted of using false documentation, the lawsuit states.

A phone call made to the Kansas City-based parent company of B&G Cleaning was not imme­diately returned.

“The contractor who had employed these ille­gals previously, the governor gives this contract to,” Moen said. “This really is a hypocritical approach to law enforcement.”

Moen said he and his client fear the Sam’s Janitorial Services case will reinforce discrimi­nation against Hispanic workers.

“What you’re basically creating is a situation where nobody that’s a contractor in the state of Missouri is going to hire any Hispanics,” Moen said. “Who’s going to take that risk? If you hire a bunch of Hispanics, they’re going to come after you.”

(Photo: S-21, the high school turned detention center during the Khmer Rouge regime, and now a genocide museum. 10 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

The report of the German parliament’s human rights commission that visited the ECCC last year was pulled off the assembly’s Web site Thursday.

Two paragraphs in the report spoke of corruption and political interference at the ECCC, claiming to paraphrase the German parliamentarians’ conversation with the court’s UN deputy head of administration Knut Rosandhaug. It also made serious allegations against the head of administration, Sean Visoth.

The report was pulled down because it was only a draft that the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Help of the Bundestag had not yet reviewed, said Guido Heinen, the Bundestag’s spokesman. The committee will review the report next week and publish its final version, he added.

“The next meeting of the committee will be in the next few days. And now is the time to exchange the draft with the final version. It’s the process for us,” he said Thursday by telephone from Berlin.

He added that no one in Cambodia had contacted the committee or asked for the report, which has been available online since November, to be pulled.

“The parliament decides how to publish and when to publish. It’s a decision of the parliament,” he said.

Back in Cambodia, court officials remained tightlipped about the allegations made in the German report.

Published on the Internet in November, it claimed that, according to Rosandhaug, “the United Nations has conducted an investigation of the head of the administration of the ECCC, Sean Visoth.” The report also contained a stronger allegation against him.

The court’s spokeswoman, Helen Jarvis, contested the statement, saying the UN only had authority over the international side of the court and the Cambodian government over the national side.

“I don’t believe that the UN has turned out an investigation. I don’t believe that the UN has the power of investigation,” she said.

“As far as I know, that’s been acknowledged before,” she added.

In September, the government had dismissed the findings of a review of kickback allegations by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, arguing it had neither jurisdiction nor evidence.

Jarvis declined to comment further about the content of the report, saying she was aware of the meeting between Rosandhaug and the lawmakers but had not attended.

Rosandhaug also declined to comment, when contacted via e-mail Thursday. He pointed to a statement made Wednesday, which said he had been “neither involved nor consulted on [the report’s] content and publication” and could not comment on documents issued outside the UN and ECCC.

Sean Visoth has been absent from the court for three months, officially for health reasons. Asked about the allegations against him Thursday, he declined to comment.

“I have been sick, and I don’t work,” he said. “Please don’t call me again,” he added before hanging up on a reporter.

The ECCC’s national co-prosecutor Chea Leang, who has read the report in its original German, said it was outdated.

“The statement was an old statement; it doesn’t reflect the current situation,” she said, pointing to a joint statement made Monday, announcing new, bilateral processes for handling future allegations of misconduct at the court.

When asked about allegations against the head of administration, she added: “Sean Visoth was appointed by royal decree; so far, there is no decree to terminate him.”

(Additional reporting by Yun Samean)

(Photo: Phnom Penh’s main market, Phsar Thmey, being renovated with funds from the French Development Agency. 19 November 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

and Tim Sturrock

Despite continued complaints about the slow pace of reforms, international donors are pledging more than $900 million in aid to Cambodia for 2009, a substantial increase from previous years and from the government’s request of $500 million, a senior Finance Ministry official said Thursday.

Government officials and donor representatives met behind closed doors Thursday for the start of the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum. Official aid figures will be released at the end of the conference today.

Asked if the pledge figure topped $900 million on Thursday, the Finance Ministry official confirmed that this was the case: “More than $900 million,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to announce any aid totals until the end of the forum.

“I was surprised for the first time [at a donor meeting]-because of the global financial crisis,” the official said, adding that he saw the increased funding as a sign of approval of the government’s actions.

Despite opening their wallets, donors were more reserved in their praise of the government. They expressed satisfaction about the country’s impressive economic growth and advancements in health and education, but noted the continuation of slow progress on judicial and institutional reforms.

In his keynote address to the meeting, Prime Minister Hun Sen touted the country’s economic success, including double-digit growth in the past four years. He also reaffirmed support for judicial reforms and for the anti-corruption law, which has remained stuck in the drafting process for 14 years and is a constant demand of donors.

“[T]he Royal Government is strongly committed to ensure rapid conclusion and adoption of this law,” Hun Sen said.

The anti-corruption law was discussed at a Thursday session, but aid levels weren’t tied to its passage, UN Resident Coordinator Douglas Broderick said.

“There was no notion at all of boycotting…absolutely not,” Broderick said, adding that donors clearly wanted to see anti-corruption measures in place but that it would be a long process.

Rafael Dochao Moreno, chargé d’affaires of the European Commission, which has already committed in a multi-year plan to donate about $35 million next year, said the government told him the law would be passed next summer.

“We’re never happy 100 percent, in any country, even in our own European countries, but the fact that there is a reform, it’s already good news,” he said.

Eva Gibson Smedberg, resident representative of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, expressed stronger criticism. She said the government was “lacking the real urge to go ahead” in passing the anti-corruption law and should also reform the courts and implement the Land Law.  Donors, too, should propose other solutions to fight graft instead of “making a statement and hoping something will happen,” she said.

Swedish aid, she said, is not a stamp of approval for the government.

“It’s more a show that there is a need, and we are there to help, not approval,” she said.

Other reasons can also push countries to increase their aid, said Volker Karl, director of the Phnom Penh office of KFW Bankengruppe, a German financial cooperation institution. Germany, for instance, has increased its aid worldwide to respect previous commitments to the G-8 summit, he said.

International Monetary Fund Resident Representative John Nelmes warned against attempts to increase military spending-which Hun Sen has previously announced he would like to do. Rather, the government should focus on infrastructure building, Nelmes said.

“When you put infrastructure in place, it creates the capacity for the economy to grow at a faster rate without creating inflation pressure,” he said.

Piper Campbell, chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy, said she was impressed by the frankness of Hun Sen’s speech and the range of issues he covered, adding it was a “good starting point.”

The US will not make a pledge during this conference because of the presidential transition in Washington and will announce figures later, Campbell said.

Once aid figures from the US and the Global Fund To Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria are announced, international aid to Cambodia for 2009 could surpass $1 billion, the Finance Ministry official said.

That figure, however, could be misleading.

For the second year running, China’s aid was included in the government figure, even though China does not participate in the donor meeting, according to the Finance Ministry official.

The government unveiled Wednesday a financial package of $215 million from China, only $7.3 million of which is aid and the rest loans that will need to be repaid.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has previously praised China for giving aid without the reform conditions imposed by other donors.

“It’s clear that for instance there are points of difference of opinion between the European Union and China. That means we advocate that the EU always has policies on democracy, on good governance and other countries don’t,” Dochao Moreno said.

China’s deep pockets and no-questions-asked attitude could be weighing on the donor conference.

“It’s true that emerging donors are making the environment different,” said Alain Goffeau, project implementation specialist at the Asian Development Bank, when asked if China’s position could be forcing donors to hold back in criticizing the government.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Qian Hai could not be reached for comment.

The political opposition held a news conference ahead of the donor meeting on Wednesday, wherein SRP President Sam Rainsy said that the government was “cheating” donors by not carrying out necessary reforms.

Mu Sochua, the SRP deputy secretary-general, said Thursday that she was disappointed the donors had decided to pledge more money than ever while also not being aggressive enough in seeking real change from the ruling party.

“It’s so much money when the reforms that have been promised have not been implemented,” she said, calling on donors to seek more oversight and set solid benchmarks for reform.

(Additional reporting by Yun Samean)

(Photo: A Cambodian soldier carries his B40 grenade launcher at the Preah Vihear temple, Cambodia. 7 November 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol and Eang Mengleng

A gun battle erupted Wednesday near Preah Vihear temple, resulting in the death of two RCAF soldiers, according to Cambodian officials. Ten Thai soldiers were also captured near the temple and are being held by RCAF, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong.

Following the fighting, which an official at the border said lasted about an hour, Thailand and Cambodia traded blame over who had initiated the skirmish and breached agreements made at several bilateral meetings since the border standoff began exactly three months ago.

“[Wednesday at 2:15 pm] Thai troops launched heavy armed attacks upon the Cambodian troops…in an apparent attempt to force the Cambodian troops out of their present positions inside Cambodian territory,” read a letter from the Cambodian Foreign Affairs Ministry to its Thai counterpart.

Two RCAF soldiers were killed and three injured, according to the statement.

Fighting occurred at three points, the statement said: the pagoda near the Preah Vihear temple, where Hor Namhong told reporters that the two soldiers were killed; Veal Intry, or “Eagle Field,” an area just west of the temple that both Thailand and Cambodia claim as their own; and Phnom Trap, a hill about 4 km west of the temple. These points of conflict lay 700 meters, 1,120 meters and 1,600 meters, respectively, inside Cambodian territory, the statement said.

Thailand had a different version of events: “Thai soldiers, while peacefully patrolling the area along the Thai-Cambodian border inside Thai territory…were shot at by Cambodian soldiers using RPG and sub-machine guns, which resulted in the injuries of five Thai soldiers,” read a letter from the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry to its Cambodian counterpart.

“Of course, it’s like every attack in the past. We claim that they started first, and they claim that we started first,” said an official at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

At a news conference Wednesday evening, Hor Namhong said Cambodian forces had detained 10 Thai soldiers who were made prisoners at the pagoda.

“Twenty Thai troops ran away, and we keep 10,” he said, adding they would be held for questioning.

The Thai Embassy official denied that prisoners were taken.

“Yes, they were disarmed, and they were forced to leave the pagoda, but no detention or no custody,” adding the troops in question were the 10 left at the pagoda in accordance with previous agreements between the two countries.

However, photographs from the temple area show Thai soldiers that had been taken prisoner seated on the ground under guard by Cambodian troops.

Both sides said they remained committed to bilateral negotiations and will hold a meeting near the temple between regional military commanders today.

Hor Namhong said Cambodia would brief the UN about the situation but would not yet request its intervention.

The foreign minister also briefed 22 ambassadors and representatives of foreign countries at the ministry Wednesday evening.

“We certainly have been watching the situation with concern and urging both Thailand and Cambodia to work to diffuse the situation,” said Piper Campbell, charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh.

The Thai Embassy renewed its call for Thai citizens to think carefully before coming to or staying in Cambodia.

“If it’s not a must to stay, to take care of business or family, we would urge them to go back to Thailand for safety reasons,” the embassy official said.

He added the embassy had been preparing for a possible evacuation since the beginning of the 3-month military standoff, though no order had yet been given.

About 50 intervention police from the Ministry of Interior kept close watch over the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh on Wednesday afternoon and night.

The policemen started lining Norodom Boulevard shortly after fighting broke out to guard the embassy compound, officers at the scene said.

The police presence is “a good way to help the embassy,” said You Vuthy, an embassy security staff supervisor, from behind barred windows. “I don’t worry about safety too much because the Cambodians are focusing on protection.”

The embassy employs between 50 and 60 Cambodians and Thais, and about 10 high-ranking officers were expected to spend the night as a safety precaution, You Vuthy said.

(Additional reporti

(Photo: Françoise Barré-Sinoussi at the French Embassy in Phnom Penh on the day she received the Nobel Prize of medicine. 7 October 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

Françoise Barre-Sinoussi, a French researcher, was in Phnom Penh on Monday when she learned she was to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery in 1985 of the human immuno-deficiency virus that causes AIDS.

“It’s a moving moment for me, all the more moving that I received the news in Cambodia,” Barre-Sinoussi said at a reception in her honor at the French Embassy.

“Despite this prize, I will always be here to work in cooperation with this country, which is dear to me,” she added.

Barre-Sinoussi, who has long worked in cooperation projects between France and Cambodia and makes frequent trips here, shares the Nobel prize with her French co-researcher Luc Montagnier and German researcher Harald Zur Hausen for his work on cervical cancer.

Speaking of current AIDS research, Barre-Sinoussi, who directs a research laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said much still needs to be done.

“There is still an enormous, enormous amount of research to do, even extremely basic research,” she said. “Is a vaccine possible, yes or no? I cannot answer that question today.”

Barre-Sinoussi said that she was attending on Monday the bi-annual Cambodge Sante conference at the University of Health Sciences in Phnom Penh when she was inadvertently informed of her prize by a journalist who telephoned from France asking for comment.

“It proves that French cooperation in Cambodia seeks to offer the best and that in fact, we do not have a discounted cooperation; we do the best cooperation possible,” French Ambassador Jean-François Desmazières said.

“We don’t send students; we send the masters,” he said.

10 August 2006: Printers cast doubt on voting machines

The county clerk says printers jammed on Tuesday and that she questions future accuracy.

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL
Columbia Missourian

The inaugural use of voting machines Tuesday raised an important question in the mind of Boone County’s top election official: Will the paper trail or the electronic count prevail if there is a discrepancy in future elections?

“When you have a problem with the paper and you know the paper is wrong and the device is correct, where do you go?” Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren said Wednesday.

The faulty design of printers in the new voting machines caused problems in getting the paper trail of Tuesday’s elections, Noren said.

“Things were jamming,” she said. “We had places where the paper was put in backwards. It looks like it’s printing, but it doesn’t.”

One machine was installed in each polling place Tuesday. Noren said she would not buy more until the printing issue was solved, despite their popularity.

In both St. Louis County and Kansas City, problems in a few precincts delayed complete election results until Wednesday.

Poll workers in 12 of St. Louis County’s 628 precincts failed to follow proper procedures when shutting down the machines at the end of Tuesday’s elections, said John Diehl, chairman of the St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners.

As a result, workers at the county’s election headquarters could not validate that the computerized ballot memory cards delivered to them in fact came from the voting machines in those precincts, Diehl said. Election workers had to wait until Wednesday morning to gain access to the voting machines, which had been locked up overnight at the polling places, he said.

In Kansas City, election director Ray James said officials had trouble locating the electronic ballot memory cards from new machines used in four of the city’s more than 180 precincts.

In Boone County, election judges and troubleshooters were present in polling places to show voters how to use the machines and ensure that each vote would be cast accurately.

“We were very careful about any anomaly, looking into it,” Noren said. “They are normally things you do post election night. We did it election night.”

The use of voting machines was mandated by the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act. The law requires machines that check voters’ ballots before they are cast and machines that are accessible to people with disabilities.

“Forty-two percent of the people voted on the touchscreens, Noren said, “… which is amazing because in most places they had to stand in line to vote on the touchscreens.”

Thanks to an audio track and buttons engraved in Braille, the machines allowed visually-impaired Boone County citizens to vote secretly for the first time.

“I’m 51, and it was the first time I’ve ever voted without using a live reader,” said Debbie Wunder, vice-president of the Columbia chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. “That was a very, very good experience. I liked the privacy, I liked being able to cast my own vote independently.”

While there were no problems Tuesday, Noren said the issues with printing could be problematic if there are close races in the November general election.

Criteria are needed before an election to determine the final count, she said.

“You don’t want to do that in litigation after an election. ”

In accordance with Missouri law, one precinct will be chosen at random and its votes handcounted before Tuesday.

Noren said recounting all votes against the paper trail would take months and a lot of staff.

“If you had an election for president, Inauguration Day would pass, without a recount,” she said.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.