Lawmaker asks more time on voting machines

By Jim Siegel
Cincinnati Enquirer Columbus Bureau   22 March 2005

COLUMBUS - As state lawmakers remain divided over what Ohio's new voting machines should look like, one House member Monday asked federal officials to extend the deadline for when those machines must be in place.

Rep. Kevin DeWine, R-Fairborn, sponsor of the legislature's latest election reform bill, asked the U.S. Committee on House Administration to give Ohio until 2008 to pick new voting machines, instead of the current May 2006 deadline.

The committee and its chairman, Rep. Bob Ney, R-St. Clairsville, were in Columbus to talk about the 2004 election and Ohio's progress implementing Help America Vote Act requirements.

Lawmakers said extending the deadline likely would leave old punch-card voting machines in place in 69 counties for at least two more years of elections, including the 2006 governor's race.

"We know that is not the preferred option," DeWine said. Ohio's federal deadline for new machines was already extended once, from 2004 to 2006.

Disagreement remains over whether machines should include a verifiable paper trail, as required under state law, DeWine said.

Proof of that disagreement was evident in the testimony Monday from the three lawmakers before the committee.

DeWine is concerned that the optical scan machines ordered for all counties by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell represent an outdated paper-and-pencil technology. Sen. Jeff Jacobson, R-Dayton, said he supports paper verification and the optical scan system.

Meanwhile Sen. Randy Gardner, R-Bowling Green, said he disagrees with the need for a paper trail and thinks Ohio should go with electronic voting machines, not optical scan.

Hamilton, Butler and Warren counties had planned to switch to electronic machines. Hamilton is one of five counties that have refused to an optical scan system - a decision that is tied up in legal wrangling.

DeWine said his election reform bill will be amended this year to address the paper trail issue - either eliminating the requirement or giving counties more flexibility.

But regardless of what the legislature does, Blackwell said he will not ask the feds for an extension beyond the 2006 deadline.

"I will not hand this off to the next secretary of state," he said. Blackwell, who wants to be governor, will leave office in January 2007.

Saying he plays "the hand that's dealt me," Blackwell said he went with optical scan because they include a paper trail and can be paid for with the $106 million in federal money available to buy new machines.

Blackwell locked horns Monday with a pair of congressional Democrats who were concerned about Ohio's election problems last year. Blackwell last month ignored a request to testify before the committee in Washington.

As a swing state, Ohio was under a microscope before and after the election, when President Bush won the state by less than 120,000 votes. Critics have argued that long lines and policy decisions disenfranchised minority and Democratic voters.

But supporters, including Blackwell, have said Ohio's election system was imperfect but worked well considering the big turnout.

U.S. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., was concerned about the long waits at the polls and the counting of provisional ballots - those cast by people whose names did not appear on voter rolls, often because they recently moved.

Millender-McDonald suggested Blackwell should have been better-prepared for the hundreds of thousands of new voters heading for the polls.

"In your brilliance, could you tell me who would have paid for it?" Blackwell fired back. Later, when Millender-McDonald asked that he stop talking to a colleague and give her his full attention, he said, "I can chew bubblegum and listen to you at the same time."

Blackwell also mixed it up with U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Shaker Heights, who has been openly critical of his decisions. She criticized Blackwell for not shaking her hand before the hearing, and following several loud exchanges, told him to "haul butt and go on home" if he wasn't going to answer her questions.

DeWine said Ohio became a focal point for controversy last year because of the timing of Blackwell's directives, such as one requiring voter registrations be submitted on certain paper thickness.

"It doesn't matter which party controls the Secretary of State's Office, last-minute directives will automatically result in a hostile reaction by the party that is not in charge," he said.

Blackwell said the late directives were a response to late questions over Ohio's election procedures. He and others noted repeatedly that bipartisan county boards, with even numbers of Democrats and Republicans, run Ohio's election system.

"It's silly on its face to think there was some sort of bipartisan conspiracy to disenfranchise blacks and Democratic voters in the inner city when blacks and Democrats were in charge," he said.