Legislators call for Ohio voter paper trail

By JAMES DREW
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF

COLUMBUS - All voting machines used in Ohio after Jan. 1, 2006, must provide a paper record to enable voters to verify their ballots, a legislative committee recommended yesterday.

The House-Senate panel voted 6-1 to recommend that the state cancel voting-machine contracts that are on hold and get new bids for machines that include "voter-verified paper audit trails" - which some refer to as "receipts."

The voter would check the paper record before the vote is cast, but the voter would not be able to take the paper record out of the polling place, and it would not include the voter's identity, said state Sen. Jeff Jacobson (R., Vandalia).

The committee, however, said if Secretary of State Ken Blackwell agrees, counties can move forward this year with new electronic voting machines that cannot provide paper records - and retrofit those machines next year to include them.

But county taxpayers would have to pick up the additional cost of retrofitting compared to buying a "factory-installed" machine with the paper records, Mr. Jacobson said.

He said most optical-scan machines can provide a paper record to voters, but touch-screen machines cannot.

Currently, 69 counties still use punch-card ballots. About 27 counties, including Lucas, are slated to move to new electronic voting devices this year.

Paula Hicks-Hudson, director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said it is unclear how yesterday's recommendations will affect the county's plans to buy voting machines.

Lucas County voters used optical-scan paper ballots in the March primary. Mr. Blackwell on March 31 broke a tie on the elections board over which electronic voting system to buy board. He chose touch-screen machines made by North Canton-based Diebold, Inc.

An aide to Mr. Blackwell, the state's chief elections officer, said he would not comment yesterday.

The recommendations are expected to be folded into a bill pending in a Senate committee, Mr. Jacobson said.

"If we're going to be the first state to go out on that limb, we should continue to examine this," said state Sen. Kevin Coughlin (R., Cuyahoga Falls).

The sole dissenter on the House-Senate committee yesterday was its chairman, state Sen. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green). He expressed concern that Ohio will have fewer electronic voting machines in place for this November's election - although he noted that several large counties, including Cuyahoga and Hamilton counties, were not scheduled to buy and use electronic voting machines this year.