Blackwell to approve voting system

The election board expects to hire a director today.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Ohio secretary of state will certify the electronic voting system used by Mahoning County now that the system can also provide a paper ballot trail, a spokesman said.
The Ohio Board of Voting Machine Examiners recommended that Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell approve Election Systems & amp; Software's electronic machines with a paper trail.
"He follows the advice of the board; it's a foregone conclusion" Blackwell will approve it, probably this week, said James Lee, a secretary of state spokesman.
Lawsuit filed
ES & amp;S, Mahoning County and 31 other counties in Ohio filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the secretary of state's office to force an extension of a Blackwell-imposed deadline on certifying voting machines in the state.
The two sides reached an agreement in May to give ES & amp;S until Nov. 1 to have its electronic machine with a paper trail certified by Blackwell. The deal also called for county election boards to select a voting machine vendor by Sept. 15.
The Mahoning election board voted Sept. 15 to retain the electronic voting system it bought for $2.95 million in 2001 from ES & amp;S of Omaha, Neb., with an added paper trail. As its second choice, the board approved using ES & amp;S's paper system with ballots read by optical scanners.
The state Legislature voted about a year ago to mandate a paper ballot trail on all voting machines effective with the May 2006 primary.
It isn't known how much the paper trail add-on will cost Mahoning County, said Thomas McCabe, the election board's deputy director. The county is also supposed to receive $2.8 million for its voting equipment from the state, McCabe said.
Promotion
Also, the board will meet today, and is expected to hire McCabe, a Republican who served as deputy director for six years, as its director, and name Joyce Kale Pesta, a longtime board clerk and a Democrat, as deputy director, said Mark Munroe, board chairman. Pesta lives in Liberty, and would have to move to Mahoning County in the near future as a requirement of getting the promotion.
The director position became vacant when Michael V. Sciortino, who held that position, was appointed county auditor about two weeks ago.
State law requires the director and chairman of county election boards to be from different political parties. Because of that, Munroe, a Republican, said he will step down as chairman, and the board will select Democrat Robert Wasko as chairman at today's meeting.
skolnick@vindy.com