Blackwell wants $128M for voting machines

Some legislators say security risks not resolved
By Susanne Cervenka
Dayton Daily News
COLUMBUS Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell will request $128 million from the state Controlling Board on March 8 to buy new voting machines despite calls from legislators to reject the proposal.

If the request is rejected, Blackwell's office will propose all 88 Ohio counties move to optical scan ballot systems, which have a paper record of the votes cast, said Blackwell's spokesman, Carlo LoParo.
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Blackwell is pushing to bring Ohio into compliance with the Help America Vote Act, doing away with punch-card ballots in favor of computer-based voting systems.
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A study, however, identified 57 security risks with the new systems being offered, and some lawmakers ? notably state Sens. Jeff Jacobson, R-Butler Twp., and Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo ? are asking the Controlling Board to reject the funding until questions are resolved.
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"We're dealing with the cornerstone and the bedrock foundation of a representative democracy," Fedor said. "We can't afford to get this wrong."
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Senate President Doug White, R-Manchester, plans to appoint a council to look into the senators' concerns.
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LoParo said releasing the funds would not mean the state would go ahead and buy flawed machines.
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The vendors' contracts require them to fix the problems, pass another security review and receive federal and state certification before any new voting system is deployed, he said.
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The majority of the money, $106 million, will go toward buying new machines, LoParo said.
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About $1.3 million is allotted to perform a second round of security testing, while another $2.6 million goes to reimbursing Mahoning County, which has already bought the new machines.
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The remainder goes to staff technical support, the absentee voting system, voter registration and overall maintenance.
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In a briefing for lawmakers Thursday, Glenn Newkirk, president of InfoSentry Systems, the company that reviewed the systems, said none of the security issues was so severe as to hold back deployment.