Putting it on paper

BY JON STEVENS,    Observer-Reporter    30 October 2005

WAYNESBURG ? Greene County voters will again be using the paper ballot system when they go to the polls Nov. 8.

But as voters, poll workers and county election officials learned last May, the process of tabulating the ballots was slightly more advanced than the old hand-count system that was in effect prior to 1998.

The county had to opt for an optical-scan system when the UniLect Patriot electronic voting system, which the county purchased in 1998, was decertified April 7 when it froze and malfunctioned during testing Feb. 15.

And, earlier this month, the touch-screen voting system again failed to be certified by the state.

But despite that, Frances Pratt, Greene County director of elections, stands by the touch-screen voting method. "Since 1998, we had a reliable system. My opinion has not changed," she said Friday.

With the system that will be in place for the general election, voters will make their ions by filling in ovals with pens. The voters will cast the ballots by ing them into locked ballot boxes at each of the polling places. Election workers will then take the ballot boxes to Greene County Office Building in Waynesburg, where a machine will count the votes.

"Now that we have experience in one election (using the system) I am a little more comfortable than I was in the primary," Pratt said.

No one questions the fact that the optical-scan system is slower than Unilect "because we are still counting the ballots centrally," Pratt said.

However, because there are few contested races, the results should come in earlier than they did in the primary.

Greene County Commissioner Pam Snyder also expects an "uneventful" election night and expressed confidence in the system and is calculations.

However, both she and Pratt expressed concern that the county is "running out of time" to an electronic voting system.

Legislation requires that all Pennsylvania counties have such a system by Jan. 1.

"We were hoping with upgrades in the Unilect software, the system would be certified," Snyder said.

After the election, county officials will be testing and reviewing touch-screen systems, the one that has been certified and ones that are pending certification, because what the county is now using does not fall within the legislative guidelines for electronic voting.

Greene County voters used paper ballots until 1998, when the county purchased about 95 UniLect Patriot Direct Recording Electronic Voting machines. Under the old paper-balloting system, local election officials were forced to spend hours on election night counting the votes by hand.

As for the general election, and as it was for the primary, an optical-scan machine will automatically tabulate the ballots. Election workers will have only to count by hand if there is a call for a manual recount.

The UniLect machines have been criticized for allegedly causing a disproportionate number of undervotes in the three counties that use the system.

Undervotes occur when a voter fails to cast a ballot for a certain office. The statewide average of undervoting is 1.49 percent. But, according to a Grove City College study, the undervote rate in Mercer was 7.29 percent; in Beaver, 5.25 percent; and in Greene, 4.5 percent

Meanwhile, the countywide race for sheriff and the contest for magisterial district judge, were settled in the primary.

Baring any miraculous write-in campaigns, Sheriff Richard Ketchem of Waynesburg, who defeated William F. Lewis of Cumberland Township in the Democratic primary, will capture his fifth term.

Glenn Bates of Jefferson Township, who won both Republican and Democratic nominations for the district judge seat now held by Neil Canan, is practically assured of victory.