Commissioners consider ditching touch machines

The nation's 15th largest election jurisdiction has more than 1 million voters.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- The commissioners of the state's most populous county are considering getting rid of touch-screen voting machines and putting in a new system for the presidential election in 2008.
Cuyahoga County spent 14 million on the Nov. 7 election and cannot afford to spend that much every time voters go to the polls, especially the high volume that a presidential race generates, commissioners Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora said.
"In 2008, we're going to be in a predicament," Dimora said. "Our system can't handle the number of voters."
The county, the nation's 15th largest election jurisdiction, has more than 1 million voters and 1,436 precincts.
"Even though we have a substantial amount of money in it, we're considering scrapping the whole system," Hagan said. The touch-screen machines, first used in the May primary, cost 17 million.
Long lines
The 2004 election in Ohio -- where a narrow win gave President Bush the votes he needed for re-election -- was marked by hours-long lines at some polls and other problems. The county's May primary was botched when equipment and other problems cause lengthy delays.
Hagan and Dimora said they want high-speed, optical-scan machines, which read paper ballots, to replace the touch-screen machines. Hagan said the commissioners need to decide this year.
Cuyahoga elections director Michael Vu said Wednesday the county might need more touch-screen machines but predicted the chance of long lines to vote would decline as voters become familiar with the system and cast their ballots quicker.
"There are growing pains," said Vu, who survived an ouster move on a 2-2 vote by the board last summer.
The county balked at buying more voting machines, mostly for financial reasons, said Cleveland Municipal Judge Ronald Adrine, who led an election board review panel and still serves as a volunteer adviser to the board.
Training
Because of concerns about a repeat of problems in the primary, the county spent millions more than budgeted in November to cover poll worker training, extra machines and mailing absentee voting applications to every voter to avert polling-place lines and problems.
The general election ran more smoothly, although a judge ordered 16 polling locations to stay open an extra 90 minutes because early voting machine problems caused delays.
Training costs could decline with successive elections as poll workers gain experience, Vu said. "We erred on the side of caution" in terms of extra training, Vu said.
Vu doubted a replacement optical-scan system would cost as much as the touch-screen system, but warned that optical-scan voting has continuing ballot-printing costs that the county's more than 6,000 touch-screen machines don't pose.
Switching to optical-scan machines could lead to other problems including challenged ballots when a voter's intent isn't clear, a key issue in the extended Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election.
Increased demand
Tom Hayes, a former Cuyahoga County elections director who was hired to help the board fix elections problems, told the commissioners that counties with new optical-scan machines can handle increased demand by simply adding more places where voters can fill out paper ballots, rather than having to install more touch-screen machines.
Adrine endorsed the idea of looking at a new, less complicated system.
"The election system is built around trying to anticipate every possible thing that can go wrong and have a contingency for it," he said. "We need to explore some alternative to what we've got. It's just problematic. There are too many things that can go wrong."
Candace Hoke, director of Cleveland State University's Center for Election Integrity, which does consulting for the election board, applauded the commissioners for beginning a voting-equipment review early. She said long lines, even with most machines working, showed the need for an alternative system with lower training costs.