SPELL-CHECK BLAMED FOR ‘OSAMA’.(Capital Region)

Albany Times Union (Albany, NY) October 22, 2008 TROY — Rensselaer County elections officials are blaming a computer spell-checking program for the error in hundreds of mailed absentee ballots that spelled Barack Obama’s surname Osama.

A county legislator said Tuesday that a Democratic Board of Elections worker iniintially accepted responsibility for the error.

“We heard that she immediately put in her resignation, but it was turned down,” said District 2 Legislator Keith A. Hammond, a Democrat. “Whether it was done in jest or in error, it is still an embarrassing mistake, but we now need to move on to more important issues.” The story broke Oct. 10 when a Sand Lake voter called the Times Union saying he received an absentee ballot in the mail on which Row 1A had Barack Obama’s name as Barack Osama.

“The immediate problem when this first surfaced was that everyone thought the Republicans or Conservatives were to blame,” said District 1 Legislator and Conservative Bob Mirch. “The people who work for the board are honest, and we are pleased a Democrat admitted the mistake.” Elections officials have said that the county is the only one in the state that prints its ballots in-house, and that Democratic workers are responsible for writing and editing Democratic candidates’ names while Republicans take care of their party’s candidates. Board of Elections officials from both sides of the aisle said it was an honest typo. Those officials did not return calls for comment on this story. onlinespellchecknow.net online spell check

On Oct. 11, the County Legislature called for an investigation and asked the county’s election commissioners, Democrat Ed McDonough and Republican Larry Bugbee, to report their findings.

In that report, released Monday by the legislature, elections officials blamed a computer program.

“This error may have been due to a spell-check function on the operating system of the computers utilized by the Board of Elections,” the report to the legislature states.

Several people who contacted the Times Union noted some older spell-checking software does not recognize “Obama” and one of the suggested corrections it offers is “Osama.” The mistake appeared on 300 absentee ballots sent out in early October to voters in Brunswick, Nassau, Sand Lake, Schaghticoke and Schodack, elections officials said. go to web site online spell check

In the report, officials also said a heavy workload that involved having to produce 13 different ballots this year and a higher than normal number of new registrations also may have led proofreaders to miss the error.

Albany County elections officials also have expressed concerns over potential problems tied to the heavy workload this election season. Thousands of absentee ballots were reprinted after at least three errors were reported in Albany County.

WEBHEADLINE:

Blame the computer for Obama-Osama goof, officials say WEBTEXT:

TROY — County elections officials are blaming a computer spell-checking program for the error in hundreds of mailed absentee ballots that spelled Barack Obama’s surname Osama.

A county legislator said today that a Democratic Board of Elections worker initially accepted responsibility for the error.

“We heard that she immediately put in her resignation but it was turned down,” said District 2 Legislator Keith A. Hammond, a Democrat. “Whether it was done in jest or in error, it is still an embarrassing mistake but we now need to move on to more important issues.” The story broke Oct. 10 when a Sand Lake voter called the Times Union saying he received an absentee ballot in the mail on which row 1A had Barack Obama’s name as Barack Osama.

Board of Elections officials have not returned calls for comment.

CAPTION(S):

A General election absentee ballot from Rensselaer County shows the misspelled name of Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

— MICHAEL P. FARRELL/TIMES UNION