According to a sworn statement from Sherole Eaton, the county's deputy director of elections, a TRIAD representative told her on Friday he wanted to inspect the county's tabulating machine. She said the employee then told her that "the battery in the computer was dead and that the stored information was gone."

"He proceeded to take the computer apart and call his office to get information to input into our computer," Eaton said.

Conyers said similar TRIAD visits have been reported in other Ohio counties.

Brett Rapp, president of Xenia, Ohio-based TRIAD, said it's standard procedure to prepare the machines for a recount so they only tally the presidential race. He said company representatives have worked on computers in every county that uses TRIAD software.

The only difference in Hocking was that when the TRIAD employee arrived, the computer's hard drive had to be repaired, he said. No vote tabulations were lost, he said.

"He had to fix the computer in order to continue the recount process," Rapp said, adding that he welcomes an investigation because his employees did nothing wrong.

- posted by J Dub @ 1:16 PM