November 3, 2005

By Diane Chiddister

On Nov. 8 Greene County voters will cast their ballots in a new way. Instead of plunging punch card ballots into voting machines and marking their choices with metal pins, they will use touch-screen voting machines.

Election officials describe the electronic voting machines as a way to make voting easier and more accessible to disabled people. However, some villagers see the machines as less secure than previous models, and potentially a threat to accurate vote counts.

“It’s a handy machine and makes it easier to vote,” said local resident Don Hollister, a member of the Greene County Board of Elections. “They make the whole process more precise and accurate compared to counting holes in cards. I don’t see any logic in not using the machines.”

Those who question the new voting machines expressed concern that the machines could be tampered with and that, being electronic, they are likely to malfunction at some point.

“The only way for safe and secure voting is using paper ballots and hand counting,” said Billie Eastman, who is circulating a petition that asks the state to discontinue the use of the machines. As of last week, she said more than 100 people have signed the petition.

Greene County is one of 44 Ohio counties using the touch-screen machines, which are manufactured by Diebold Election Systems of North Canton. Three other counties in the state are using precinct count optical scan systems produced by Elections Systems and Software of Omaha and Diebold Election Systems, according to a press release from the Ohio Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell.

According to the press release, the new machines are designed to make voting easier. The touch-screen system ballots can be adjusted in size for easier reading, and the machines help voters avoid over or undervotes, Blackwell said in the press release.

The machines are also easier to use for people with disabilities and those who have difficulty using their hands, according to Llyn McCoy, deputy director of the Greene County Board of Elections.

At a demonstration of the new machines at the Yellow Springs Senior Center two weeks ago, about 15 people showed up to learn how to use the machine, according to Charlotte Mowry, a seasonal employee of the Board of Elections who was one of three demonstrators. People had an “excellent response” to the machines, Mowry said.

However, Mowry also said that several people in Yellow Springs came to the event with questions and concerns, which, she said, was unusual in her experience as a demonstrator.

One who raised questions was Helen Eier, who said that the machines seemed easy to use, but that she left the demonstration without her questions being fully answered.

“As computers, they will have glitches,” Eier said. “The big question for me is why? I didn’t see any great advantage to them.”

According to McCoy, the Board of Elections is using the machines because all Ohio counties have been mandated to do so by the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act. The law requires states to “discontinue the use of punch cards and other antiquated voting systems by the first federal election in 2006,” according to the press release from Blackwell.

Greene County purchased 565 machines at a cost of $2,700 each, according to McCoy, who said the machines were purchased with funds from the Help America Vote Act. She said the Diebold machines were chosen because Diebold was “the only certified company,” and that in Ohio boards of elections “were not given much choice by the state” as to the kind of machines used.

A concern raised by those who oppose the use of the new machines is that Diebold’s founder is a prominent Republican fundraiser, and that the machines were cited as disproportionately contributing to election day failures in the 2004 presidential election, according to the Web site www.votersunite.org.

In his press release, Blackwell said the machines have undergone a “multi-step evaluation process to ensure system security, functionality, reliability and accuracy” and a “rigorous technical security analysis” of the machines’ software and hardware was conducted by Compuware Corporation, based in Detroit.

In Ohio, the machines are also required to have paper ballots that reflect the electronic vote.

However, according to Eastman, the vote tallies on the paper ballots are printed in a very small font and are on poor quality paper, all of which, she said, makes the ballots difficult to read.

McCoy said on Nov. 8 that Greene County voters can count on an honest vote because the Board of Elections is composed of professionals who take pride in an accurate vote count, and because the only people who will have access to the voting machines, which are not hooked up to other computers, are the members of the board and staff, who are a balanced number of Republicans and Democrats.

She also said the Board of Elections prides itself on honest elections.

“We’re on the up and up in Greene County,” said McCoy, who is a Democrat. “I don’t have a magic cure-all other than my word. I’m a honest person.”

Anyone with concerns about the accuracy of the election results may ask for a recount, Hollister said.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com