Board of Elections still waiting for decision on new voting machines 
2005-03-10 
By Nick Claussen 
Athens NEWS Associate Editor 
 

In a case of true irony, the decision on new voting machines for Athens County could be delayed because the Athens County Board of Elections may have voted improperly.

On Feb. 9, the Athens County Board of Elections voted on two new voting-machine systems for the county. Both of them are optical-scan machines, meaning that voters fill in circles with pencils to designate for whom they want to vote, and then a machine scans in the results. The process is much like taking a standardized test that's graded electronically.

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said every county in Ohio has to switch to the optical-scan machines, and that each county can pick either machines offered by Diebold Election Systems or machines sold by Election Systems and Software.

This came after Blackwell told the counties in 2003 that they would have to choose between several vendors selling optical-scan and electronic touch-screen machines. In January 2004, the Athens County Board of Elections ed the electronic touch-screen machine sold by Diebold Election Systems by a 3-1 vote.

While Blackwell required Athens County and other counties still using the punch-card system for voting to choose the new machines, he then delayed their implementation and then stopped it completely because of concerns over the lack of a paper trail for the votes with the touch-screen machines.

So earlier this year, Blackwell said that all counties, no matter if they had punch-card voting systems or electronic touch-screen voting systems, had to have optical-scan voting systems. He also said that the counties had to decide by early February on the two approved companies, or his office would decide for them.

On Feb. 9, the Athens County Board of Elections voted 2-2, along party lines, with Democrats Susan Gwinn and William Lavelle voting for the Elections Systems and Software machines, and Republicans Howard Stevens and Dick Mottl voting for the Diebold Election Systems machines.

The board members said at the time that because they could not reach a decision, they believed Blackwell would choose a system for the county by drawing a name out of a hat.

On Wednesday, the Board of Elections members said that they thought Blackwell was supposed to have made a decision on Tuesday, but they still had not heard if he had or not. They also said his decision might be delayed.

"We still don't know," Gwinn said. She explained that apparently only one or two other counties in Ohio had not been able to make a decision on voting machines and had forwarded the decision to Blackwell. She added that the decision on Athens County's voting machines might have been delayed because of legal issues.

One issue, she said, is that the Athens County board has heard from Blackwell's office that it may have voted improperly on the voting machines. Gwinn said that Blackwell's office is saying that the elections board did not make a motion before it voted, so it may be required to vote again on the voting machines.

Gwinn said that board members have not heard anything for sure from Blackwell's office, and hope to learn something soon about why the decision has been delayed, when it will be made, and which voting machines the county will use.