End Ohio's voting machine debate
Editorial   Cincinnati Enquirer    16 April 2005
  

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's decision Thursday to let counties opt for electronic touch-screen voting machines - along with his negotiation that netted the state a lowest-in-the-nation price for counties to buy the devices - is a welcome move to ease Ohio's continuing controversy over vote technology.

The state's voting reform, which was supposed to have been fixed by the 2004 election, had been delayed by years of political intrigue and infighting that failed to serve the public and unnecessarily eroded voters' confidence in the system's fairness.

It's time for counties to choose their machines, put them in place quickly, and make sure they are ready to help guide voters in using the technology.

Earlier this year, Blackwell ordered all 88 counties to install optical-scan voting machines, after deciding that the controversial touch-screen machines would be too expensive when equipped, as the state legislature had mandated, to provide a "voter-verified paper trail." Machines had to produce a paper printout that each voter could double-check before finalizing his or her vote.

This requirement had become the holy grail of conspiracy theorists who feared votes could be stolen or manipulated with the ATM-like electronic machines, even though state and federal tests had certified such systems as secure - and even though some counties had been using them problem-free for a decade.

Ohio has about $115 million for new machines from federal funds, which Blackwell's office calculated would not be enough to buy electronic machines with the printout add-on. So he ordered counties to use the scan system, in which voters make marks on a paper ballot that is then read by machines.

But the state recently was able to persuade Diebold Election Systems to sell upgraded touch-screen devices at a price - $2,700 each - lower than Diebold had originally offered for machines without the paper trail.

So Ohio's on-again, off-again move to new voter technology is on again - for good, we hope. Counties such as Cuyahoga that had committed to electronic systems can resume installing them this year; other counties such as Allen can stick with scan systems.

Whatever the choice, they should get on with it and leave this fruitless debate in the past.