As midterm voting gets underway a paper supply crunch is testing the preparedness of U.S. election officials in America’s democratic process and exposing a key vulnerability.
An estimated 30 million pounds of paper the 2022 election cycle will use, according to industry experts. During the pandemic have pinched national stockpiles, leaving little room for error, soaring demand and a shortage of manufacturers.
“Just we’re all collectively crossing our fingers and hoping that the supply chain works just fine”, Ricky Hatch, for Weber County county clerk and election administrator, Utah said.
To a local ballot requiring a large-scale reprint the biggest concern is editing mistakes or last-minute changes. Hatch said that when the shortage could manifest itself.
According to the company it got an inside look at one of the nation’s largest ballot producers, Runbeck Election Systems in Phoenix, Arizona, which will deliver 50 million consuming more than 5 million pounds of paper midterm ballots across 10 states.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Runbeck CEO Jeff Ellington said Defense Production Authorization was granted, and the Commerce Department has prioritized paper supply for the election with help from the Department of Homeland Security.
“For paper Amazon put an order in and we’re going to take precedence if we put an order in for paper”, Ellington said. “Just to make sure and that has helped we would have what we need.”
Across North America to shut down or convert to more profitable products, such as cardboard, the global transition to digital and virtual work has led to plunging demand for white paper, forcing many paper mills.
“It’s a very real threat but for converting over I don’t blame them”, Ellington said.
On their stockpiles to fulfill orders many surviving paper mills stopped producing new paper and relied, during the pandemic experts said. Those have since dwindled. Adding strain on the paper supply chain, Mill workers and truck drivers have also been in short supply.
To remain tight potentially into 2023 industry groups say paper production capacities are expected.
For ballot paper the U.S. Election Assistance Commission warned state election officials of “unprecedented demand”, this year may not be fulfilled with “very long order lead times,” and a risk that some “urgent last-minute orders”, in a nationwide alert issued in January.
Executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors Amy Cohen, said “We’re paying extra close attention to proofing of all materials that we need to make sure, because if there was a typo or if there is a typo, your vendor might not be able to fill an emergency order in that way”.
In at least 34 states with early voting underway, so far there have only been isolated reports of trouble. Requiring a second print and more paper, last week in Arizona, the secretary of state discovered that 6,000 mail-in ballots that had been sent out were printed with major errors.
To strictly limit printing of voter registration forms in January the paper shortage forced Texas officials. By scanner machines two thirds of mail were unreadable because of a printing mistake and had to be processed by hand during Pennsylvania’s May primary, in ballots in Lancaster County.
The Election Assistance Commission told a reporter in a statement that this month the paper crunch “should not impact voting in the general election,” so far.
Former director of elections in Denver, Colorado, Amber McReynolds, said “This is actually a good example of a success story”. “There has been avoidance of a major crisis because of that coordination and that communication largely”.
When election integrity is already in the spotlight Election Day could still bring surprises, but experts caution, at a time which may be especially consequential.
“When placing a ballot order a definite risk” is underestimating voter turnout for mail-in and in-person voting, Hatch said. He said “Trying to gauge turnout is actually quite difficult”.
All of the ballots get printed on machines that run at 500 feet per minute, at Runbeck. About 20,000 ballots Runbeck moves every hour.
McReynolds said for states where voters have to file a request to get an absentee ballot, “election officials really don’t know until within 60 days of the election how many people are going to sign up to get that ballot”.
“The operational predictability is not as good”, she continued. Election officials really have to place orders and then “have to kind of guess at how many voters might vote that way”.
Although rare, underestimates have happened. In Marblehead forced election officials to photocopy ballots a town-wide ballot shortage, which could not be run through voting machines and had to be counted by hand, during the 2022 Massachusetts primary.
“It’s not realistic to think that the problem is solved. Cohen said, “It’s not”. “We need to be thinking about for 2024 that the ballot printing vendors have already made clear to us that this is going to be a persistent problem and something”.
Source:- https://blogspacecap.com/ballot-paper-shortage-could-cause-problems-on-election-day/
