Filing, voting-machine proposals written into budget

JOHN McCARTHY   Associated Press   20 June 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Proposals to prohibit candidates for federal office from seeking statewide office and to ensure that there are enough voting machines available to end the long lines at polling places have been placed in the state budget, lawmakers said Monday.

The budget language was prompted by a decision to further study in the Senate a House-passed bill that would make extensive changes to election law, said Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Cuyahoga Falls Republican.

"We're probably going to hold it over until the fall. There just are lots of ideas out there that we don't have time to vet or get into the bill," Coughlin said.

The House and Senate separately were to vote Tuesday on a joint conference committee's final version of the $51 billion budget for the two years beginning July 1.

Candidates for federal office could not file for state or county office in the same election, under an amendment added Sunday. The idea grew out of the 2002 election, when Dayton-area Republican John Mitchel filed for Congress and then for governor, a race he later abandoned, said Sen. Jeff Jacobson, also a Dayton-area Republican.

"I tried to pass this several years ago. It was a loophole. We just said, 'This is bizarre,'" Jacobson said.

The budget also includes a provision that states each county that chooses touch-screen voting systems must have at least one machine for every 175 voters. Each county board of elections would receive enough money to meet that standard. It's part of the $115 million in federal money provided through the 2002 Help America Vote act.

Some voters had to wait hours in line in November's presidential election, with waits up to seven hours at a precinct in Gambier, home of Kenyon College.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's chief elections officer, is in agreement with the additions to the budget, spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

"We want to prevent a situation where county boards of elections have too few voting devices," LoParo said.

Another provision of the budget would allow the secretary of state to seek the help of the attorney general's Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification in election law investigations. The state would step in if the secretary of state felt a county prosecutor had a conflict with the local elections board, Jacobson said.

State Sen. Teresa Fedor, a Toledo Democrat, thinks the issue needs more study.

"It's coming out of the blue," Fedor said. "We clearly are making too many laws and just throwing them into the (budget) pot."

Majority Republicans in the Senate want to make two significant changes in the House version of the bill they are putting off until lawmakers' summer break is over - allow voters to cast ballots before Election Day at the county board of elections and require them to present photo identification at the polling place before casting a ballot, Coughlin said.

Catherine Turcer, the legislative director for Ohio Citizen Action, said the longer lawmakers wait to approve the changes, the closer it will get to the Feb. 16 filing deadline for next year's statewide primary.

"This is stuff they need to sort out relatively soon. Let's say the leave this until December. They would be cutting it pretty close," Turcer said.

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