Hamilton Co. joins voting machine suit

By Cindi Andrews
Cincinnati Enquirer staff writer     13 May 2005

Hamilton County is joining a suit against Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell that seeks more time and more choices for county election officials picking voting machines.

The county Board of Elections voted 3-0 Thursday to sign onto the suit filed by Election Systems & Software, a Nebraska-based voting-machine maker. Four other Ohio counties - Franklin, Mahoning, Sandusky and Allen counties - also have joined.

The company and the counties contend Blackwell's deadline for companies to submit their machines for certification - today - is unreasonable and unnecessary.

Hamilton County Elections Director John Williams said the deadline comes barely two weeks after the state finalized its requirements for voting machines, which had to be changed after the General Assembly required a voter-verifiable paper trail last year.

Texas-based Diebold Elections Systems is the only company that has resubmitted its electronic voting machine for certification so far.

Blackwell has also set a deadline of May 24 for counties to pick a certified system, and at this point it appears that electronic voting machines offered by ES&S and Texas-based Hart InterCivic will not qualify.

It's the latest reversal of course for Blackwell, who first required counties to pick one of five voting systems offered by three companies in early 2004.

In January 2005, he ordered counties to again, this time from among the two non-electronic systems - the so-called optical scan systems, in which voters fill in ovals with No. 2 pencils.

Blackwell's office said the changes have been made and the tight deadlines set in an ongoing effort to replace punch cards and other outdated voting systems by May 2006, as required by Congress.

"The system that the counties choose has to be safe, reliable, easy to operate for the voters, and it has to meet federal and state requirements," said spokesman James Lee.

Williams said Hamilton County would like to reinvestigate the electronic machines made by all three companies Blackwell originally ed - ES&S, Diebold and Hart InterCivic - to see how they work with the addition of paper receipts.

"The secretary's directives limit us in our ability to choose any other system (but Diebold)," Williams said. "But we have different needs than a rural county, perhaps."

Judge Dale Crawford of Franklin County Common Pleas Court set closing arguments in ES&S's lawsuit for Tuesday - four days after the deadline Blackwell has set for certification.