Batteries Not Included

Dead batteries -- that's what Election Systems & Software officials are saying is to blame for the failure of dozens of computer memory cards in Summit County's new optical scan voting system.

``What we're dealing with is a portion of one batch of cards sent out in recent weeks have an issue with low batteries,'' ES&S spokeswoman Ellen Bogard said Friday.

ES&S made the new voting equipment, but the memory cards were made by Vikant Corp., a Long Grove, Ill., company. Company officials from Vikant did not return a call seeking comment.

Testing of the county's new voting system began Monday, when the memory cards failed to work as often as 30 percent of the time.