Optical scanners may be optimal solution

Editorial   Seneca Co. Advertiser-Tribune   24 January 2005

A few years ago - due to the fiasco involving hanging chads on some Florida ballots from the 2000 presidential election - it looked like the entire country would switch to touch-screen voting machines ASAP.
That change ran into two roadblocks: cost and security.

Replacing each punch-card voting device in Ohio with a touch-screen computer monitor wouldn't be cheap. Plus, concerns were raised about the security of the computers and network recording the votes. Some people balked at casting a ballot without getting a receipt showing their vote.

Now, the state elections chief is directing elections boards to use machines which optically scan ballots marked by voters.

Such a switch might hurdle the cost and security roadblocks. Just ask Barbara Tuckerman, elections director for Sandusky County. The county to our north switched to optical scanners in 2001.

How did the voters react?

"They loved it," Tuckerman said. "Actually, there was no big deal about it when we changed."

The system is similar to the punch-card system, except voters mark ballots instead of punching them. Computer viruses and hackers are not a threat.

"You can have a recount with paper ballots," Tuckerman said. "You can't have a recount with touch screen."

That's because the data on a storage device wouldn't change. "A cartridge is always going to say the same thing."

"Of course we had the presidential recount," the director said. "And then we had a recount for the county treasurer's office.

"We didn't have any problems with either of the recounts."

Sandusky County has two optical scanners. Ohio's secretary of state wants two per precinct. Yet that still should be cheaper than replacing each punch-card station with a touch-screen monitor.

With optical scanners, "you have to pay to print ballots," Tuckerman said. "But those (touch-screen) machines, even if the federal government pays for them, you have to maintain them."

It sounds like optical ballot scanners are the way to go for the Nov. 8 election. - no ifs, ands or hanging chads about it.