Ohio punch-card argument pointless
Editorial

When it comes to voting machines, Ohio just can't win. After the Florida 2000 election fiasco, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell led the state's effort to get rid of punch-card systems and move to more accurate ones, such as electronic touch-screen systems. The change has been all but derailed by county elections officials and state legislators who demanded a "voter verified paper trail" for electronic ballots - a feature that punch-card ballots never had anyway.

Now, Blackwell is the principal defendant in an ACLU suit against Ohio over the alleged violation of voters' rights by punch-card machines - which should have been on the scrap heap by now. The timing couldn't be worse. Ohio figures to be perhaps the pivotal state in a very close presidential election this fall. A controversy that reduces voter confidence by calling into question the fairness and accuracy of Ohio's vote could have national repercussions. All the parties involved ought to cool it and join forces to ensure this November's vote in Ohio is counted as completely and accurately as possible, regardless of balloting system.

The ACLU's arguments - arguments Blackwell has been making for years - are correct. Punch-card systems are inherently flawed. It is impossible to prevent "overvoting" - voting for too many candidates in a race. This tends to invalidate votes of poorer, less educated voters. In 2000, 2.3 percent of Ohio punch-card presidential votes were thrown out, compared with 0.7 percent of electronic ballots.

But Ohio historically has done a better job with punch-card accuracy than other states. It's been a dependable system that the ACLU concedes hasn't changed the outcome of any races. A big part of the answer is voter education. Whipping up voters' doubts is no solution, especially less than four months before a presidential election.

Franklin County has been using electronic ballots for nearly a decade without incident. Surveys show that Americans who have used electronic systems trust them more than the alternatives. This is where the future lies. But it can't happen this year in Ohio, no matter what transpires in court. The only choice is to help make the 2004 election a clean, fair and accurate one.