(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.

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: The Preah Vihear temple, center of a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. 7 November 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

While officials on both sides insist that tension that rose Wednesday around the Preah Vihear temple has eased up, the incident left an impression of déjà-vu: as opposition to the government mounts in Bangkok, so does the pressure at the border.

The 4.6 square kilometers of disputed land near the Preah Vihear temple had been quiet for weeks when, according to Cambodian officials, about 100 fully armed Thai soldiers crossed there Wednesday afternoon and were met by Cambodian soldiers. Negotiations ensued and the Thai soldiers pulled back a few hours later.

Meanwhile in Bangkok on Thursday, thousands of “red shirt” opposition supporters marched to Government House aiming to oust the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, and his Foreign Affairs Minister, Kasit Piromya.

The tables were turned late last year: with the yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy, Kasit was once of those stirring nationalistic sentiment, accusing the government of giving up the temple. Later, his appointment as the fourth foreign minister to handle the 10-month border dispute was criticized, as opponents thought he had been too cavalier in criticizing Cambodia.

Now, apparently unable to please either way, he stands accused of being too lenient on Cambodia, for not stopping the construction of a Cambodian road to the temple, that red-shirts say took away 250 meters of Thai territory. He withstood a censure motion in Parliament last week, but only by the narrowest margin of any government minister.

Cambodian officials, irritated by the slowness of negotiations, have on several occasions blamed it on the interference of Thai domestic politics. And Thai observers aren’t fooled either: an editorial in The Nation newspaper on Thursday called on the “red shirts” not to use the same methods that had been used against them.

“[They] should not repeat this mistake because it would not bring any good to the country, only problems and trouble,” the article read.

The Thai-Cambodian Joint Border Commission is scheduled to again discuss the boundary demarcation on April 6 and 7 in Phnom Penh. Such negotiations have too coincided in the past with rhetorical escalations and agitation of troops.

The message coming Thursday from the Thai military, through deputy spokesman Colonel Werachon Sukondhapatipak, was one of reassurance.

“We have a policy that we do not do anything that could be perceived as provocative,” he said by telephone from Bangkok. “We want to avoid any misunderstanding.”

“If this is the case, that there is a movement [of troops at Preah Vihear], then it is only a rotation. There is no order to increase troop numbers at the border,” he added.

Thani Thongpakdi, deputy spokesman of the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry, said the troops had been moving within the borders of Thailand. Because the area has yet to be demarcated, both countries occasionally accuse each other of encroaching. Thani also said the reported figure of 100 soldiers was exaggerated.

At the temple, Preah Vihear Authority secretary-general Hang Soth said villagers had moved to the temple for fear of the Thai troops.

“They moved to a safe place because they were afraid an incident might occur at any time,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Eang Mengleng)

(Photo: A fire set voluntarily to clear forest on the Bolaven Plateau in Laos. 8 March 2009. By Isabelle Roughol.)

By Isabelle Roughol

Environmental activist Dr Francis Glémet arrived in Cambodia about three weeks ago with no contacts and no introductions. Since then, he’s been knocking on doors, burrowing his way through Phnom Penh’s media and academic circles and calling up government officials.

The retired pharmacist who speaks too fast in the joyful accent of southeastern France and likes having dessert in the middle of the afternoon is an unlikely prophet with a simple gospel: no government, not even a poor one, can afford to ignore pollution and global warming any longer.

Jumping from one topic to the next, his conviction evident, he spewed in a recent interview a litany of pollution-related ailments: asthma, cardio-vascular disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s, heavy metal poisoning, all sorts of cancers, and the latest, diabetes, recently found to be facilitated by air pollution. Not to mention the decreased fertility that, in the very long run, could mean the slow extinction of humanity, he added.

He spewed solutions, too: incinerating trash at least, if not recycling it; prohibiting a dangerous chemical in plastics; reducing packaging; requiring particle filters on new and diesel cars; setting up public transportation in the capital, and so on.

“It’s true, this discourse is out of this world [in Cambodia.] But I believe that today, whatever the contingencies of a country are, we all live on the same Earth. The global problem will catch up with us sooner or later,” he said.

Glémet is the president of France’s National Medical Coalition for Health and Environment, or CNMSE, a 1-year-old alliance of 3,500 health professionals who want people to live green, if for nothing else, to preserve their lives. All volunteers, the members reach out to government officials and media wherever they travel in the hope of influencing policy and creating an environmental consciousness.

Dr Claude Thuan, a French endocrinologist who traveled with Glémet, is his sobering voice.

“We must go step by step,” Thuan said. “What Dr Francis Glémet talks about is an ideal, but the ideal doesn’t exist [in reality].”

Cambodia has many other issues to address, Glémet conceded, and he is not optimistic about the results of this month-long visit.

“It is by repeating things, it is by having loudspeakers,” that you get results, he said. “It’s certain that this first mission may end on just being listened to. If we are listened to, somewhere we’ve opened a door.”

Glémet met with Heng Nareth, director of pollution control at the Ministry of Environment.

“I explained him the situation in our country: water pollution, air pollution, waste management,” Heng Nareth said Monday.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s just only an NGO. We really appreciate his NGO’s contact with the ministry, but he did not say any promise,” he added, before hanging up the telephone when asked about the government’s anti-pollution measures.

That is a typical reaction: governments are interested in the message but want him to bring ready-to-go projects with funding, even though the CNMSE has no budget, Glémet said. Meetings in Cambodia went well, but funding is always the issue, he added.

“We don’t have financial means, we only have our knowledge and our good will,” he said.

“Our mission is first and foremost to sound the alarm,” he added.

And alarm there must be, explained Minh Cuong Le Quan, manager of the climate change unit at the environmental NGO, Geres. Cambodian farmers are the first to feel the effect of global warming, when swarms of brown grasshoppers and recent droughts followed by unusually strong rains destroy their crops.

“The interest that people have in protecting the environment is not ideological; it’s existential,” he said.

However, the link between pollution, climate change and health problems is still something few Cambodians understand and need to be more educated about, Le Quan said.

For instance, when trash is burnt in heaps on the side of the road, including plastic waste from the textile industry, dioxins are released and eventually find their way into the food chain, he explained. When chickens were found to contain dioxins in 1999 in Belgium, it created a scandal all over Europe.

“No scandal comes out in Cambodia because people are not aware and we’re used to living in a very contaminated environment,” he added.

The government is conscious of environmental issues, but because of Cambodia’s usual governance issues, not enough is done, he said. For now, it would be more effective to appeal to economic interests, by advertising the business opportunities in waste management and other green industries, he added.

There is also a need for more studies that would give an accurate picture of Cambodian pollution on which the government could base its policies, he said, a view echoed by Glémet.

One rare study, led by researchers from Japan’s Kanazawa University with help from Cambodian officials, showed hydrocarbon particles concentration in Phnom Penh to be more than seven times that of Bangkok, based on samples taken in 2005.

The stake is to not see in Cambodia the vertiginous rise in cancers other diseases seen in the West in the past two decades, said Glémet, who goes back to France on Thursday and plans to return to Cambodia for another ‘mission.’

“To walk around at 5 pm, and to have red eyes, to have a pressing coughing fit and to practically lose your voice, as happened to me yesterday [Feb 1], it means something,” he said. “It’s true that when you live in this country, you get immunized, but for how long?”

(Photo: Thai soldiers in the jungle of the disputed border area with Cambodia. 7 November 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

Opposition party leader Sam Rainsy warmly welcomed the election of new Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in a letter of congratulation on Tuesday to the leader of Thailand’s Democrat Party, the SRP’s political brethren in a coalition of Asian liberal parties.

Sam Rainsy expressed his trust and confidence in the new Thai premier-the third in four months-and his ability to restore stability in Thailand, after weeks of protests that also delayed the resolution of the country’s border dispute with Cambodia.

“It is also my strong belief and hope that your vision for regional harmony will see peaceful solutions and the strengthening of economic and cultural ties that will bring mutual progress and prosperity to our peoples,” Sam Rainsy wrote, also praising Abhisit’s commitment to fighting corruption and protecting democracy.

But Abhisit is also the man who led the charge against former Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundarajev in a no-confidence debate in the Thai parliament last June when he accused Samak of endangering Thai sovereignty by conceding to Cambodia’s bid to list the Preah Vihear temple as a Unesco World Heritage site.

Abhisit branded Samak’s support for the UNESCO listing as a loss of Thai territory to Cambodia.

Soon after, opposition protesters branding themselves as true Thai nationalists showed up at Preah Vihear temple, a move that was soon followed by armed Thai troops marching crossing the undemarcated border in July, and starting an armed standoff that is still playing out to this day.

“We always welcome anyone elected directly or indirectly by their own people,” Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said on Wednesday when asked to comment on Abhisit’s election. Phay Siphan said he welcomed any development that brought stability to Thailand.

Asked to comment on concerns that Abhisit could take a tougher stance in negotiations over the border at Preah Vihear, Phay Siphan said the legal framework for talks was already in place and negotiations with the new government would be based on a memorandum of understanding signed in 2000.

“They opposed each other back in Bangkok; they did not oppose us,” he added.

Now that they are in government, Abhisit’s Democrats Party has less interest in stirring up a dispute with Cambodia, said John Virgoe, Southeast Asia project director for the International Crisis Group.

“It was a useful stick with which to beat the Samak government, accusing them of lack of patriotism. But I can’t see who would benefit politically by keeping this [border] issue alive, Virgoe wrote in an e-mail from Jakarta.

“I imagine the new government will support the Thai foreign ministry’s efforts to resolve the dispute,” he wrote.

Though stating that he could not speak on the new Thai premier’s politics, Virachai Plasai, the lead lawyer for the Thai foreign ministry in the border talks with Cambodia, said Abhisit had shown support in Parliament for the negotiating framework the legislature has approved.

Thai Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharaks, however, declined to say what Abhisit’s stance on the border dispute would be.

“We don’t have a foreign policy yet because we have to submit to the parliament first,” he added.

With supporters of the former government already protesting Abhisit’s election, and at least three more Thai parliamentary approvals to go before the border dispute can be tackled and possibly settled, it’s anyone’s guess if Abhisit’s will be the government to end the border dispute.

As Virgoe wrote, “it’s a bit early to predict that this government will be around for long.”

(Photo: A door of the Preah Vihear temple. 7 November 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

Thailand cleared the last constitutional hurdles to holding border talks with Cambodia over the Preah Vihear temple, but differences resurfaced Thursday over the minutiae of international treaties and maps delineating the border, hinting at a long and protracted negotiation process.

Thailand’s parliament gave a mandate to the government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat late Tuesday to negotiate border issues with Cambodia, both in the short term to resolve a months-long military standoff near the Preah Vihear temple, and in the long term to demarcate the contested border.

“I feel hopeful and bulletproof at the same time,” said Virachai Plasai, director of the Treaties and Legal Affairs Department at the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry.

“Hopeful on the international plane, meaning we should be able to make some progress, and bullet-proof on the internal plane,” because parliament approved the mandate with an overwhelming majority, he said by telephone Thursday from Bangkok.

Thailand had previously argued that under its constitution, it could not commit to any deal with Cambodia without approval from the legislature. The way is now clear for the work of the Joint Boundary Commission, which is set to commence talks Nov 10 to 14.

“I’m ready to negotiate,” Virachai said, adding he would offer to his Cambodian counterparts to visit Phnom Penh before Nov 10 to best prepare the talks.

But, he added, negotiating won’t be easy work as both sides disagree on what documents to work from regarding the border’s demarcation.

Cambodia uses a map based on demarcations completed a century ago by France, which places Preah Vihear temple and the disputed area of Veal Entry, or Eagle Field, firmly inside Cambodia. The International Court of Justice used that map in 1962 when it ruled that the Preah Vihear temple belonged to Cambodia.

Phay Siphan, spokesman of the Council of Ministers in Phnom Penh, said the map “we’ve been using is 100 years old, and international organizations recognize that.”

Thailand four times did not object to the map, Phay Siphan added: in a French-Siam treaty in 1937, another in 1946, in the ICJ decision of 1962 and the memorandum of agreement signed between Thailand and Cambodia in 2000.

“We’re not forcing the Thais to obey the demarcations of the map, but they already signed it,” Phay Siphan said.

Virachai, however, said Thursday that Cambodia’s French-drawn map was irrelevant.

“Both sides can bring any map to the table [based on the 2000 MOU]. If the Cambodian side wants to bring that map to the table, we cannot prevent that. But we will not bring it to the table because we believe it is not relevant,” Virachai said.

“We will not accept this map as representing a legally binding boundary,” he said.

Virachai also said that Thailand would abide by the ICJ decision, but that it applied only to the temple, and not the border. Negotiations, Virachai said, could take years to resolve, noting that talks with Laos on a dispute border area, which both countries fought a war over, were now entering their second decade.

“Look at the Laotians, at the spot where we fought a war in 1987,” Virachai said. “Hundreds of deaths at the time, and we’re still negotiating.”

(Photo: Catholic church in Pakse, Lao PDR. 11 March 2009. By Isabelle Roughol)

By ISABELLE ROUGHOL
Columbia Missourian

When a group of volunteers from Columbia’s First Presbyterian Church arrived in New Orleans two months after Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Kathie Jackson was overwhelmed by the devastation.

Jackson, the associate pastor at First Presbyterian, was shocked by the absence of life: There were no birds chirping, no grass, no dogs barking at passers-by.

“It looked like something from a war movie,” she said. “And it was just such a stark contrast, from a city that was alive to the land of the dead.”

Last month, when a group of volunteers from the church returned to New Orleans, they were surprised to see that not much had changed in the eight months since Jackson had been there. In one home, half-packed suitcases rested on the beds, and a newspaper from Aug. 28, 2005, the day before the storm came ashore, lay on the kitchen table. In a school the group was working in, assignments for the day of the storm were still on the chalkboards.

“Things were still intact almost,” said Nathan See, director of youth ministry for First Presbyterian. “I mean, ruined, but just as how they were left.”

First Presbyterian and other faith-based organizations have played an important role in the post-Katrina relief effort, dedicating time, manpower and money. In a report released in February, the White House praised their work.

“These groups succeeded in their missions, mitigated suffering and helped victims survive mostly in spite of, not because of, the government,” the report stated. “These groups deserve better next time.”

Kim Baldwin, director of public policy for The Interfaith Alliance in Washington, D.C., agrees. However, she says, the massive response by faith-based organizations across the country underscored the federal government’s failure to meet its own obligations.

“I think from the second Katrina came ashore, the federal government failed all Americans,” Baldwin said.

She said religious organizations do not have the financial means to provide relief over the long term. Many of the organizations that opened their hearts and budgets to the relief effort are hurting themselves. Indeed, Baldwin said, congregations have been forced to cancel some of their regular programs such as choirs and day care because their funds and facilities are tied up in the relief effort.

“The reason we’re in this position is because the government failed,” Baldwin said. “The religious community picked up the financial slack for those guys.”

Baldwin said it was the mission of religious groups to provide emergency relief and help people in grief, but none of the groups she met expected to have to do so much, over such a long period.

“Houses of worship are there to help people in hurting time,” Baldwin said. “They’re not there to be the sister organization of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).”

Jackson said the church has had to tighten its belt a little but was fortunate enough to have some contingency funds that will allow a third group of volunteers to go to the Gulf Coast in September. She’s more worried about the long-term ability of the church to respond to the crisis. The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program’s relief effort along the Gulf Coast is scheduled to last at least seven more years.

“The Presbyterian Church overall is having a more difficult time finding volunteers,” Jackson said.

While churches around the country continue to contribute to the rebuilding efforts along the Gulf Coast, others are still helping the evacuees who came to their communities in the wake of Katrina.

In August, the Mid-Missouri office of Lutheran Family and Children’s Services organized Camp Noah, a one-week gathering for children whose families relocated to the area after the hurricane. The organization estimates that there are still 65 displaced families living in Columbia.

“They’ve just gone through so much,” said program coordinator Kristen Setterlund. “It just helps them to be able to tell their story, over and over again.”

Although many children have recovered, counselors say some are still scared of storms or refuse to talk about the disaster.

“We don’t want them to forget what they’ve been through because they won’t, but we want them to be children,” said Douglas Stevens, a counselor. “We have kids here who have seen dead bodies, have walked in the water.”

Ten-year-old Ashleigh Craig, who attended Camp Noah, was stranded in New Orleans before she could evacuate to her aunt’s home in Columbia with her mother. She says that she would like to return someday to the city where her father still lives, but that there isn’t a house there for her family to go back to.

Kathryn Oberg Roberts, disaster relief coordinator for the Lutheran organization, said many families forced out of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast think it could be a long time before they’ll be able to return home.

“Most of the families have a mind-set that they need to remain here,” Roberts said. “They are definitely torn between being part of a new city and culture, and being with family and their roots in New Orleans.”

Some never had the chance to go home.

The Rev. Archie Lambert Sr. always meant to go back to New Orleans, said his daughter Brenda Brown. When the levees broke, his house in the Ninth Ward flooded, forcing the 80-year-old to his roof, where he lived for four days without food or medication. After being rescued, he joined his family who had relocated in Columbia.

But the ordeal took its toll on him physically. He died Aug. 8.

“He was worried a lot about going home,” Brown said. “Going home, going home, going home.”

Missourian reporter Alice Roach contributed to this story.

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.