Election officials OK touch screens

The Toledo Blade     06 May 2005

The Lucas County Board of Elections yesterday chose touch-screen machines with paper receipts as the voting equipment of choice.

Using money from the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the county will receive 1,613 machines, of which 212 will be configured for voters with disabilities.

The decision, which was made with little discussion and a unanimous vote, comes a week before the deadline of May 13 set by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell for voting machine system plans to be submitted by each county to his office. Mr. Blackwell's office will buy the machines for each county at a cost of $2,700 a unit.

Election officials have been told that the machines will be in place in time for the general election in November. There are 300,137 registered voters in Lucas County.

"We have a voting system in the 21st century," board Chairman Diane Brown said.

Although always the intention of the board, the decision to purchase the touch-screen machines hit a snag earlier this year when Mr. Blackwell mandated that counties could only use HAVA money to purchase optical-scan machines. He reversed that decision last month, opening the door for Lucas County to bring in the newer and ballotless machines.

As part of the deal, the machines are outfitted with a verifiable paper trail, or receipt of sorts, to ensure that a recount can be done if necessary.

Lucas County has been without its own voting equipment after deciding to sell off its lever machines last summer.

Since then, it has rented optical-scan machines at a significant cost or used paper ballots.

Jill Kelly, director of the elections board, said paper ballots would once again be used - and hand counted - in August if the county is required to hold a special election.

Election officials said yesterday that the new machines should lead to smoother elections and quicker results. And to make sure that election-day problems are recovered from quickly, election board members will ask the county commissioners to purchase an additional 50 machines and supplies, such as extra batteries.

Also to be presented to commissioners is the purchase of new software that will link the county's registration system with the state and also allow for the electronic filing of voter registration cards. The software will cost nearly $442,000, including five years of maintenance fees, to be taken from the county's capital improvement fund.

Both contracts will be with Diebold Election Systems of McKinney, Texas.

Ms. Kelly said that once in place, the new software and machines will cut down on overtime costs and the possibility of errors.

"Voter registration has always been a very labor intensive process," she said. Ms. Kelly added that the only paper ballots necessary once the equipment is purchased will be for absentee voters.

Although the decision-making process began months ago, a new board of elections voted yesterday to make it official. All four previous board members resigned this year at the request of Mr. Blackwell, who investigated the board and placed it under state oversight. Ms. Brown, the only remaining board member, said her resignation will be effective June 3.