Solution to lost votes is to use electronic voting
Monday, December 27, 2004
By MICHAEL E. HANKE  Canton Repository

Lost in all the petty bickering about Ohio?s presidential election is the continuing problem with residual, or ?lost? votes in that race. Residual votes occur when over- or under-votes occur, which means either more than one candidate was ed or no candidate was ed. The biggest problem is ion of more than one candidate. And the solution to that problem is electronic voting.

In Ohio, about 96,000 ballots did not have a vote for president, most of them because more than one candidate was ed. A wire story in the Rep noted that nearly 77,000 of the 96,000 residual ballots in Ohio were punch cards. Electronic voting machines, such as the one made by Diebold, do not allow ion of more than one candidate for president. The machine will tell you the problem, and you can correct it.

The use of electronic voting machines in Ohio was fought by a small, loud bunch of Democrats who thought the electronic voting machines would be tricked out to shift the election to President Bush. They won the day, and most of Ohio used punch-card ballots. The irony in their victory is that the residual voting problem is most pronounced in precincts that traditionally vote for Democrats. This was seen in the 2000 presidential election in Stark County, when more than 3,000 residual votes showed, mostly in Democrat-leaning precincts. By keeping electronic voting machines out of most Ohio counties, the Democrats ensured a more favorable vote margin for President Bush and did so, amazingly, knowing the situation from the 2000 election.

Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell favors changing Ohio?s voting system to allow modern electronic voting. The punch-card system is an old-fashioned method of electronic voting, in which a computer counts the votes. Blackwell has the right idea, but if it happens, he will cause his own party to lose tightly contested races.