Chuck Venvertloh

QUINCY – About 2,000 ballots cast during early voting in Adams County will go back through the voting machine Thursday night because of a glitch that was found in a test of the system.

Cheryl Hobson of the Illinois State Board of Elections will observe the count. Adams County's Republican and Democratic committee chairmen also will be invited to observe the recount or send a representative on their behalf.

County Clerk Chuck Venvertloh said the computer coding error was found during a test. Board of Elections technicians helped Venvertloh's office fix the problem on other ballots.

"This was some sort of coding error. It was on the federal ballot only, and they've already walked us through how to fix it," Venvertloh said.

Board of Elections general counsel Ken Menzel said a tabulator was not recording the proper volume of ballots.

"With any human and tech combined endeavor, there are going to be problems," Menzel said. "Whenever a glitch occurs, we want to make sure it's corrected and it's done transparently."

Other state election officials said coding errors are not uncommon and are usually found during pre-election testing or during the first weeks of early voting.

Venvertloh said early voting has been brisk so far and he's urging people to vote before Nov. 8 if possible.

"Right now we rarely have a line," he said. "There are two election judges, one from each party, and they do a pretty good job of moving things along."

By comparison, Venvertloh expects there to be long lines on Election Day.

Early voting started Sept. 29, and the county clerk's office was handling about 200 voters a day or more then. Voting has slowed somewhat since, with about 150 to 170 voters coming in each day.

More than 5,500 people did early voting in 2012, and Venvertloh hopes to see that number eclipsed in this election cycle.

He has extra ballots to avoid a repeat of the March 14 primary, when a ballot shortage led to some voters being turned away as polls were kept open late so that more ballots could be prepared. Election results were delayed for a week, and there were unsuccessful attempts to reopen polls for extended voting.

"We're going to have more than 110 percent of the ballots we need. I'm having some more printed now because we've had about 700 people register to vote since September," Venvertloh said.

Registration stands at about 46,900 voters in the county.

Ballots also have been corrected after Judge Alan D. Tucker's last name was misspelled as "Trucker" on some early ballots.