Voting machine question sparks 'violent' disagreement on board 
2005-05-19 
By Nick Claussen 
Athens NEWS  

The continuing saga of electronic voting machines for Athens County took another strange twist on Tuesday when the Athens County Board of Elections chose a new type of voting machine for the third time. Now the question is, will this be the final time?

After the two previous choices of machines, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell ordered Athens County and every other county in the state to return to the drawing board after he changed the requirements for eligible voting machines.

After Tuesday's choice, though, it may not be Blackwell but one of the local election board members who may try to force another vote.

The board went into Tuesday's meeting in a 2-2 tie, with the two Republican members, Richard Mottl and Howard Stevens, favoring the electronic touch-screen machine from Diebold Election Systems, Inc., and the two Democratic members, Susan Gwinn and Bill Lavelle, favoring the optical-scan machine from Election Systems & Software.

If the vote on the new machines had ended 2-2, Blackwell would have made the decision. Board members had said they thought Blackwell would choose the Diebold machine, just as he chose the Diebold optical-scan machine for the county after the last tie vote.

At the Tuesday morning meeting, though, Stevens was not present. Board members said he had to be out of town because of a family health problem. Stevens could not be reached for comment on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The board was scheduled to vote on the new machines, and Gwinn, who chairs the Board of Elections, said she thought the group should go ahead and vote.

"I violently disagree," Mottl replied. He said he had not talked to Stevens, but said he could try to get hold of him later in the day. Mottl added that he had to get to a doctor's appointment and did not think the board should vote on the issue without Stevens being there.

Lavelle and Gwinn briefly discussed how they favored the Election Systems & Software machines, though, and then put the issue up for a vote. The board voted 2-1 for the ES&S machines, with Mottl voting against them.

Mottle charged that the board had held the vote in an "illegal fashion" and said he planned to write a "dissertation" on why the board should not have voted. He charged that the board originally was supposed to meet Monday to discuss questions over ballots from the May primary, but instead put those questions on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting. That means, he suggested, that discussing those issues Tuesday called Tuesday's whole meeting into question.

Mottl was visibly upset throughout the rest of the meeting, as the board briefly settled the issues over the disputed ballots from the May primary and then adjourned.

"You have done a great disservice to Howard Stevens," Mottl declared.

After the meeting, Gwinn said she doesn't think she and Lavelle did anything wrong by bringing the issue up for a vote.

Gwinn said that the board members decided last week that the vote on the voting machines would be on Tuesday. She said the board originally decided to discuss the disputed ballots from the May primary on Monday, but the board members decided to discuss them at the Tuesday meeting instead. In addition, all of the items discussed were on the agenda, she said.

During the meeting, Gwinn asked Mottl if he wanted to hold off discussing the disputed ballots, but he said to go ahead with the discussion.

As for the absence of Stevens, Gwinn said the board did not need to change its meeting just because one member could not attend. She also said that she did not know when the board members could get together again to vote on the matter, so she thought it was best to just vote during the meeting.

"Was I supposed to vote the way I thought Howard was going to vote?" Gwinn asked. She said she felt bad for Stevens who had to deal with family health problems on Tuesday, but Tuesday was the scheduled day to vote on the new machines and the board just stuck to its agenda.

Gwinn added that Stevens had visited the Board of Elections office the day before and left her a note, which she saw after the meeting. The note said that he did not think the board would need extra funding to purchase the Diebold electronic touch-screen machines, but the note did not state which machine Stevens favored.

The cost of the new machines is an issue for the elections board. Before the Tuesday morning meeting, the three board members present met with the Athens County Commissioners to discuss the issue. During that meeting, Gwinn said she believed that if the county chose the electronic machines from Diebold, the county would need to purchase at least 100 more machines to have an adequate number for the county. The machines cost $2,700 a piece, so the county would have to spend at least $270,000 on the extra machines.

Mottl told the commissioners that he disagreed with Gwinn. He said he has studied the issue and found that the county might not have to buy any additional machines. The state would provide funding for 242 machines, he added, and the county really would only need 222, which would give the county 20 extra machines to use at different polling locations.

Gwinn, however, said the county would need between 340-400 voting machines.

Mottl also said that the optical-scan machines favored by Gwinn would present additional expenses in the long run in the costs of paper and storage. Mottl said he likes the Diebold touch-screen machines and thought they would be the best choice for the county.

Gwinn, though, said she likes the ES&S machines best because of their cost, because voters would feel comfortable with them, because they would have a paper trail, and because they would be simpler for poll workers to use than the other voting machines.