At least three people in Chatham County were given the wrong ballot while trying to vote Tuesday.

Poll workers in Chatham County accidentally handed out ballots to at least three voters without Amendment 1 on them. For the primary election there are different ballots for voters 17 and under who will turn 18 before the general election in November, those ballots do not include the marriage amendment.

One woman filed a formal complaint by e-mail with Chatham County's Board of Elections, said Dawn Stumpf, director of elections for Chatham County. The wrong ballots were give out right as polls opened at 6:30 a.m. at the Hickory Mountain precinct at Pleasantville United Methodist Church, she said.

One woman who was given a wrong ballot realized it before she voted and asked for the right ballot. Two voters didn't realize it until after they submitted their ballot, but did not want to file a complaint, Stumpf said.

Polling sites have scanners to help poll workers determine which ballot to give to voters, but Hickory Mountain's scanner was down this morning, which made it confusing for volunteers, she said.

"I guess there was a lot of confusion. There's a lot of ballot styles ... it's very confusing for poll workers to have so many ballot styles," she said.

The scanner at the Hickory Mountain precinct is now working and the county has not received any more complaints, she said.

If you have a complaint or see anything unusual at your polling place today, give us a call at 919-932-8746 or e-mail kferral@newsobserver.com.

Chatham County received a site plan today for a 148,400-square-foot, full-service Walmart store off of U.S. 15-501 just south of the Orange County line.

"Walmart's announcement of a second store in the county means approximately 300 new jobs and we need every one of them," Commissioners Chairman Brian Bock said in a statement. "Given how many of our residents must commute outside the county to work, often for long distances, this is very good news."

According to Walmart, the average hourly wage for its regular, full-time employees in the state is $12.39 per hour, as of October 2011. This does not include benefits. Walmart's statement said that more details on job opportunities will be available toward the end of the construction phase.

Bock said that the store will be a much-needed boost to the county's sales tax revenues and the property tax base. "Given the store's location, it will attract shoppers from nearby counties."

Dianne Reid, president of the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation said, "In developing our Economic Development Strategic Plan, we found that approximately 64 cents of every retail dollar spent by Chatham County residents is spent outside the county. This project will help us stem the resulting leakage in retail sales tax revenues."

Orange County leaders have watched for Walmart's announcement. Some have expressed concern about how a Walmart so close to Chapel Hill-Carrboro would affect possible plans for Obey Creek, a big mixed-use project proposed for U.S. 15-501 just across from Southern Village.

We're working on this story now for tomorrow's N&O and Sunday's Chapel Hil News. What do you think about today's announcement? Will you shop there? Are you worried about a further loss of sales tax dollars outside the county? Tell us here or in a letter to editor@nando.com  

Want to put your old Christmas tree to good use than just recycling it? Here's an unusual way to reuse it — donate it to the Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro.

Chatham County is offering holiday programs to recycle trees, wrapping paper, cooking oil and even nonworking strings of lights.

Free tree-cycling will be offered at the Main Solid Waste & Recycling Facility at 720 County Landfill Road on the following dates:

Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill will play at 8 p.m. Thursday on the campus of Carrboro High School in the finals of The O.C. - an invitational soccer tournament that matched prep teams from Orange and Chtham counties.

From correspondent Tammy Grubb

In a surprise move, the Chatham County Human Relations Commission resigned Monday night, telling the Chatham County commissioners it could no longer advocate effectively for better race relations and an end to discrimination.

“All [the group’s] achievements and our progress came to a halt on Jan. 3, 2011,” HRC Chairman Norman Clark said, referring to the commissioners’ decision to fire Esther Coleman, the former executive director of the county’s Human Relations Office.

Coleman was hired in 2007 – roughly seven years after the county established the HRC. January’s 3-2 decision to cut that post, which commissioners Mike Cross and Sally Kost opposed, was part of a plan to save $2 million in four years. Coleman made $80,000 a year.

In preparation for North Carolina's July 1 landfill ban on TVs and computer equipment, Chatham County is expanding its existing electronics recycling program.

Special recycling containers, or E-Cycle Stations, will be set up by July 1 at all 12 county collection centers to accept electronics weighing less than 50 pounds from county residents with a current decal.

Townsends, the chicken processor whose North Carolina assets were bought by a Ukrainian billionaire earlier this year, is laying off 145 employees at one of its facilities in Siler City.

The company filed a notice Monday with the N.C. Department of Commerce under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

The WARN notice said the layoffs amount to half the employees at the plant located a 1101 E. Third St. in Siler City. The layoffs will take place between July 1 and July 7, according to the WARN notice.

Townsends employs about 1,200 people in Chatham County and has contracts with hundreds of chicken farmers in Chatham and surrounding counties. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, and its assets were subsequently auctioned.

The North Carolina operations were acquired for $24.9 million by Omtron, a U.S. shell corporation created by Oleg Bakhmatyuk, a Ukrainian businessman who owns food, transportation, real estate and financial companies.

David Purtle, Omtron's CEO, did not immediately return a call this morning seeking comment.

In March, an adviser to the new owner, George Kikvadze, declined to rule out the need for layoffs.

"Our goal right now is to save as many jobs [as we can] and the way we can do that is by making the business as competitive as possible, " he said.

There are a few more events on tap this weekend to celebrate Earth Day:

Have you ever wondered what happens to the things we throw away and who pays  for it? How about how many local jobs are supported when people choose to reuse, recycle and compost stuff instead of throwing it away?