Touch screens, at last

Editorial     Toledo Blade   19 April 2005
THE process has been herky-jerky at best, but the outcome appears satisfactory: Lucas County will finally get touch-screen voting machines, paid for entirely with state and federal funds.

The deal spells welcome relief for taxpayers because the county would have been forced to shell out $2.4 million toward purchase of the state-of-the-art electronic devices, which will at last move the voting process into the 21st century.

Now, if Secretary of State Ken Blackwell will take a break from his gubernatorial campaign long enough to appoint a new board of elections, the focus on the third floor of Government Center can return to administering accurate, impartial elections.

Mr. Blackwell is presenting the deal as a victory on his part, trumpeting more machines for the county at a cheaper price and with a voter-verifiable paper trail.

While that is true, at least on its face, Ohioans will recall that the deal is yet another reversal by Mr. Blackwell, who in January ordered boards of election across Ohio to buy optical scan systems. Fortunately, the Lucas County board, either because of or despite its advanced state of dysfunction, did not comply.

This and other administrative fits and starts by the Republican secretary of state provide plenty of evidence that he has a long way to go to convince Ohioans that he is decisive enough to be governor.

Mr. Blackwell needs to replace all four members of the board of elections as soon as possible so the new board can get on with the business of acquiring the touch-screen machines, conducting pollworker training, and acquainting the public with their use in time for the mayoral election this fall.

Touch-screens have been used twice in local elections since 2002. Each time, problems were not with the machines themselves but because there were too few machines for the number of voters or election workers with too little training made mistakes in their operation.

To allay concerns about accuracy of the electronic devices, each of the machines will produce an anonymous paper record which voters will use to verify their choices before tapping the screen to cast their ballot. This paper trail also could be used in the event of a recount.

Despite murky claims by conspiratorialists, the record of touch-screen voting is good in the states where it is employed, far better certainly than the outmoded and error-prone punch-card systems that helped foul up the contested 2000 Florida presidential election. Incredibly, punch cards are still in use in 69 of Ohio's 88 counties.

In accepting funds under the federal Help America Vote Act, the state must modernize all its voting machines by Jan. 1.

It's long past time for Ohio to set aside political wrangling and administrative indecision and push its voting methods into the new century. With the advent of touch-screen voting, this goal is finally in sight.