Elections board still split on new system

By Justin McIntosh    Marietta Times   12 July 2005
Washington County Board of Elections officials are still split over which voting system the county will use in 2006 elections even after several citizens and poll workers made their almost unanimous opinion known to the officials Monday.

The county must decide by Sept. 15 whether it will stay with an d version of a system it currently uses or a different system with more advanced technology.

The updating of election systems around Ohio is part of the federal Help America Vote Act, which requires new systems to be in place for the first federal elections of 2006. Congress passed the act in response to the 2000 presidential election problems in Florida. The federal government is paying $115 million for the upgrade in Ohio?s 88 counties.

The citizens and poll workers all recommended staying with the optical scan system in an d version because voters were familiar with it.

?Change sometimes causes confusion,? said Woody Prior, 53, of 126 Buells Circle, Marietta, who also favors the optical scan system because voters can review their votes after each ion to verify their accuracy instead of doing the review after finishing the entire ballot.

Eighteen people attended the Monday meeting to walk through demonstrations of three different systems, two of which were touch-screen voting machines. The third demonstration was on an d version of the county?s current optical scan system.

The meeting was requested to give citizens an opportunity to test the equipment and ask questions of the equipment manufacturers.

Board members had hoped to use the citizens? opinions to break the split among the board. But an informal survey of board members after the meeting showed no change in their opinions.

?It?s still tied 2-2 and it?s probably going to end up that way and the secretary of state will have to decide for us,? said Howard Kitchen, Republican board member.

A spokesman for the Ohio secretary of state said recently that if the county?s board of elections remained split on which voting system it would use in 2006, the state would make the decision.

But only months ago the local board was unanimous in its ion of an optical scan system.

Ed Vermaaten and Dorothy Kemp, Democratic board members, said Monday they wondered why a second vote was ever conducted on the issue since the board was initially unanimous in its decision.

?In order to override a vote that has been cast we would have had to have somebody of an opposing position request reconsideration,? Vermaaten said during the board?s regular business meeting Monday just prior to the demonstrations. ?We are now beyond even reconsidering that vote.?

There are three approved options for counties to choose when ing an d voting machine, two of which are optical scan and a third that is touch screen. The two vendors are Electronic Systems & Software and Diebold Election Systems.

Both companies offer optical scan systems, while only Diebold currently offers a touch screen system. An Electronic Systems & Software touch screen system is not certified by the state.

The representatives of the two companies made their presentations Monday trying to distinguish their products from their rival company.

Todd Mullen, of ES&S, made his pitch to citizens and county officials on the selling point that the county has used his company?s optical scan system since 1995 so poll workers and voters are used to it.

?The only difference between what you?re using now and what you?re going to use is you?re going to put this paper (ballot) in the reader at the precinct level,? Mullen said.

Currently optical scan ballots are collected at the precinct level and counted and reviewed at the board of elections office in the county courthouse in Marietta.

The d optical scan system will allow county voters to deposit their ballot into a ballot reader that will then alert voters of any voting errors.

For instance if a voter does not fill out the entire ballot, the reader will tell the voter in private that the ballot was not fully completed.

Franc E. Thomas Sr., of Diebold, said touch screen voting is not as difficult as many people believe.

Thomas began his presentation quoting several statistics about how young people today are growing up with computer technology. The demonstration then began with a 7-year-old girl voting a fake ballot on the touch screen system.

?You see touch screens in the operating room, in the gas stations in McDonald?s,? Thomas said. ?... And what about the other end of the spectrum? If a 7-year-old girl can do it, what about a 77-year-old? We did 159 counties in Georgia and folks told us it was very very easy.?

Thomas also explained how the touch screen system holds each person?s vote in three separate locations, including a paper trail that?s printed on a roll of paper for voters to review after they cast their ballot. If needed, the system can also print out an 8 1/2- by 11-inch copy of the ballot as cast by the voter.

Some officials estimate the cost of a new touch screen system could be up to $700,000, while optical scan systems could cost about $224,000. The price difference mostly comes from the need for fewer optical scan systems, Washington County Board of Elections Director Becky Kirkbride has said.