Blackwell opts for people filling out ballots by hand
By Julie Carr Smith
Published January 13th 2005 in The Plain Dealer
The battle is over and electronic voting machines, at least in Ohio, are dead.
After years of wrangling and protests, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell announced Wednesday that he will limit Ohio's uncompleted voting-machine conversion to a single device: the precinct-count optical-scan machine.
The decision effectively sidelines the embattled touch-screen voting machines that protesters portrayed as razor-toothed, vote-eating monsters prone to hacking.
An Ohio security review completed in December 2003 uncovered dozens of security risks in the machines, many of which companies were working to fix.
Complicating matters was a recent state mandate that all electronic machines be equipped with expensive voter-verifiable paper backup systems, a technology for which the state had not yet laid out standards.
"We have a tight election reform deployment schedule, too few allocated federal and state dollars and not one electronic voting device certified under Ohio's standards and rules," Blackwell said in a statement.
Blackwell's order calls for optical-scan machines - which process paper ballots filled out by hand and fed into a computerized counter at the precinct - to be deployed statewide by November.
Spokesman Carlo LoParo said these machines - long Blackwell's favored technology - produce the required paper record and are more flexible and affordable than electronic machines. Ohio has a limited pot of federal money to pay for the conversion.
Keeping costs down is important because adding a paper trail to touch-screen devices could have increased spending on the machines by 20 percent, he said.
And long lines in November caused election boards to want more machines per voters - and there are 900,000 more voters statewide than in 2000, he said.
Blackwell's move was backed by the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, which called the optical-scan plan more prudent.
Executive director Larry Long said Blackwell's proposal "is the only way Ohio can comply with federal law without counties being required to pay for part of the cost for installing new voting devices."
But not all elections officials liked it.
Michael Vu, director of Cuyahoga County's elections board, the largest in the state, said Blackwell's directive is "not acceptable."
"There are a lot of questions that need to be looked into before we make an arbitrary decision like this without input from elections officials from around the state," said Vu, whose board was preparing to replace its punch card system with an electronic one. Most counties still use punch cards.
"We already made a decision, and now we have to throw that out for a different system by Feb. 9."
Lake County Elections Director Jan Clair said Blackwell's decision will mean replacing her county's $3 million system.
The county has been using touch-screen machines since 1999.
She said Lake County tested different machines, including optical scan, before settling on electronic machines.
Converting to optical scan would waste money and saddle taxpayers with the expenses of printing and processing paper ballots, she said.
"I'm not prepared to tell my commissioners and my voters that a system that I have in place, and have had no problems with, is no longer the voting system that's allowed," Clair said.
"One county might like driving a Pontiac, another might like driving a Chevy, but don't tell us all we have to drive a Volkswagen."
Two of Ohio's three authorized machine vendors - Diebold Election Systems, and Election Systems & Software - are cleared to provide optical-scan machines.
A third, Hart Intercivic, was certified only to sell electronic machines, so it is shut out. The exception is that one electronic machine per voting location is required for the disabled.
"We are obviously very disappointed to hear about the change of events, but we don't feel we're out of the game," said Hart spokeswoman Michelle Shafer, who noted the company has other devices that would meet Ohio's criteria.
A Hart computer programmer sent a three-page letter to Blackwell in July accusing the company of misrepresentations and illegalities.
Among his allegations was that Hart submitted a specially programmed machine - not one using the configuration voters would get - to security testers.
Shafer characterized that claim, and others in the letter, as "erroneous nonsense."
Diebold's Mark Radke said attacks on electronic voting - which focused for many months on his Ohio-based company - were proven wrong in November's election.
He said Diebold electronic machines showed lower than average error rates in the states that used them, and had met all Ohio's certification requirements two weeks ago.
"We are surprised by this, especially because of the terrific success we had in November," he said.
Ohio State law professor Dan Tokaji said the purpose of Ohio's voting machine conversion - ordered under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 - was to replace antiquated, error-prone punch card systems.
"The state has continued to drag its feet on that," he said.
"And, while I think deploying optical-scan machines could resolve the constitutional questions [with punch cards], I'll believe it when I see it."
Plain Dealer Politics Writer Mark Naymik contributed to this report.
After years of wrangling and protests, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell announced Wednesday that he will limit Ohio's uncompleted voting-machine conversion to a single device: the precinct-count optical-scan machine.
The decision effectively sidelines the embattled touch-screen voting machines that protesters portrayed as razor-toothed, vote-eating monsters prone to hacking.
An Ohio security review completed in December 2003 uncovered dozens of security risks in the machines, many of which companies were working to fix.
Complicating matters was a recent state mandate that all electronic machines be equipped with expensive voter-verifiable paper backup systems, a technology for which the state had not yet laid out standards.
"We have a tight election reform deployment schedule, too few allocated federal and state dollars and not one electronic voting device certified under Ohio's standards and rules," Blackwell said in a statement.
Blackwell's order calls for optical-scan machines - which process paper ballots filled out by hand and fed into a computerized counter at the precinct - to be deployed statewide by November.
Spokesman Carlo LoParo said these machines - long Blackwell's favored technology - produce the required paper record and are more flexible and affordable than electronic machines. Ohio has a limited pot of federal money to pay for the conversion.
Keeping costs down is important because adding a paper trail to touch-screen devices could have increased spending on the machines by 20 percent, he said.
And long lines in November caused election boards to want more machines per voters - and there are 900,000 more voters statewide than in 2000, he said.
Blackwell's move was backed by the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, which called the optical-scan plan more prudent.
Executive director Larry Long said Blackwell's proposal "is the only way Ohio can comply with federal law without counties being required to pay for part of the cost for installing new voting devices."
But not all elections officials liked it.
Michael Vu, director of Cuyahoga County's elections board, the largest in the state, said Blackwell's directive is "not acceptable."
"There are a lot of questions that need to be looked into before we make an arbitrary decision like this without input from elections officials from around the state," said Vu, whose board was preparing to replace its punch card system with an electronic one. Most counties still use punch cards.
"We already made a decision, and now we have to throw that out for a different system by Feb. 9."
Lake County Elections Director Jan Clair said Blackwell's decision will mean replacing her county's $3 million system.
The county has been using touch-screen machines since 1999.
She said Lake County tested different machines, including optical scan, before settling on electronic machines.
Converting to optical scan would waste money and saddle taxpayers with the expenses of printing and processing paper ballots, she said.
"I'm not prepared to tell my commissioners and my voters that a system that I have in place, and have had no problems with, is no longer the voting system that's allowed," Clair said.
"One county might like driving a Pontiac, another might like driving a Chevy, but don't tell us all we have to drive a Volkswagen."
Two of Ohio's three authorized machine vendors - Diebold Election Systems, and Election Systems & Software - are cleared to provide optical-scan machines.
A third, Hart Intercivic, was certified only to sell electronic machines, so it is shut out. The exception is that one electronic machine per voting location is required for the disabled.
"We are obviously very disappointed to hear about the change of events, but we don't feel we're out of the game," said Hart spokeswoman Michelle Shafer, who noted the company has other devices that would meet Ohio's criteria.
A Hart computer programmer sent a three-page letter to Blackwell in July accusing the company of misrepresentations and illegalities.
Among his allegations was that Hart submitted a specially programmed machine - not one using the configuration voters would get - to security testers.
Shafer characterized that claim, and others in the letter, as "erroneous nonsense."
Diebold's Mark Radke said attacks on electronic voting - which focused for many months on his Ohio-based company - were proven wrong in November's election.
He said Diebold electronic machines showed lower than average error rates in the states that used them, and had met all Ohio's certification requirements two weeks ago.
"We are surprised by this, especially because of the terrific success we had in November," he said.
Ohio State law professor Dan Tokaji said the purpose of Ohio's voting machine conversion - ordered under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 - was to replace antiquated, error-prone punch card systems.
"The state has continued to drag its feet on that," he said.
"And, while I think deploying optical-scan machines could resolve the constitutional questions [with punch cards], I'll believe it when I see it."
Plain Dealer Politics Writer Mark Naymik contributed to this report.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.