No electronic voting for Ohio
Like the SAT: Optical scan equipment will be used statewide

By Cindi Andrews
Enquirer staff writer  12 January 2005

COLUMBUS - Ohio is abandoning electronic voting in favor of lower-tech, lower-cost optical-scan equipment, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell announced today.

"It is just the most efficient and practical way to proceed," Blackwell said in an interview. "We're faced with a tight implementation schedule, tight money and no (electronic) machines that are certified."

With optical-scan, voters shade in the oval next their choices, as students do on the SAT and other standardized tests. Optical scan is one of several systems permitted under the federal Help America Vote Act, which requires Ohio and other states to get rid of all punch-card voting by 2006. Clermont County already uses optical-scan machines.

Blackwell's decision is a dramatic reversal of his long-held position that counties could pick their own voting system from among three electronic and two optical-scan systems.

Electronic voting, in which voters make their choices on a computer screen, either by touching the screen or turning a knob, is being used in states such as Kentucky, Florida and California.

Most Ohio counties, including Hamilton, Butler and Warren, had planned to switch to electronic machines. Their purchases were delayed when the General Assembly voted in mid-2004 to require a voter-verifiable paper trail on all systems.

That addition will add at least 20 percent to the cost of electronic machines, Blackwell said, and last year's 12 percent increase in registered voters means the state will have to buy more voting machines than expected.

Ohio has received $132 million from Congress to overhaul election equipment, enough to pay for less expensive optical-scan equipment but millions short of what is needed for electronic machines.