State elections office says new voting machines needed by January

JOHN McCARTHY  Associated Press   19 May 2005

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Linda Householder is loyal to her voting-machine maker.

The director of the Auglaize County Board of Elections has been happy with the punch-card system Election Systems & Software has provided voters in her county, but she must get rid of it.

The Help America Vote Act, which Congress passed in 2002 following the punch-card mayhem in the 2000 Florida presidential election, requires those systems to be replaced with either electronic touch-screen or optical-scan machines, which electronically read marks voters make on paper.

ES&S and Diebold Election Systems are the two vendors who will stock Ohio's polling places in next year's elections. Diebold offers counties both systems; ES&S is certified to offer only optical scan.

ES&S has taken Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to court to erase his May 13 deadline for certifying systems. The company believes it can have its machines ready in time for next year.

Householder said the board feels ES&S never got a fair chance. Blackwell says all vendors had the same chance.

"We are currently happy with what they do for us," Householder said. "We feel like we're being forced to choose a vendor we aren't familiar with and we are not comfortable with."

Auglaize and three other counties - Brown, Logan and Ottawa - were considering joining the suit, said Keith Cunningham, president of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials and director of the Allen County Board of Elections.

On Wednesday, Allen and three other counties - Mahoning, Hamilton and Sandusky - were granted extensions from the May 24 deadline for choosing a vendor to May 27 after joining the lawsuit filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. Diebold, based in North Canton, was the only vendor whose touch-screens had qualified by the deadline, Blackwell's office said.

Judge Dale Crawford granted Mahoning County's request for an extension and Blackwell broadened it to include the four counties in the lawsuit. Blackwell would not necessarily grant the extension to any other counties joining the suit, spokesman Carlo LoParo said. Crawford said Wednesday he would rule in the case next week.

As of Wednesday, only one of 23 counties that picked a vendor had opted for ES&S optical scanners. The other 22 had ed Diebold touch-screen machines.

Blackwell wants all counties ready with their new systems by January in case an unexpected opening occurs in the U.S. House or Senate, LoParo said. Systems must be in place in time for the first federal election of 2006, under the federal program providing the $115 million that will pay for new voting machines.

Cunningham said not all counties may be ready by January and that Blackwell should just focus on the counties where a congressional election might take place. Counties previously expected the deadline to be May, when the statewide primary takes place.

Michael Vu, elections director in Cuyahoga County, said he expects to have his new machines in place by this November's election and will have no problem meeting Tuesday's deadline for ing a vendor. The county will choose Diebold machines pending negotiations with the vendor, he said.

Many county elections officials have said they would prefer using the equipment before the May 2006 primary because of heavier turnout expected then. The requirement to stop using punch-card machines grew out of problems in the presidential election in Florida in 2000.