Flaws in Ohio’s voting system demand immediate attention

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, both Democrats, along with the Republican leadership of the General Assembly must move quickly to develop a credible solution for what ails the state’s electronic voting system.

A study by corporate and academic scientists, found much is wrong with the touch-screen machines being used in 57 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

The scientists identified a host of ways in which votes cast on the machines are vulnerable to manipulation.

Secretary of State Brunner, who secured the $1.9 million from the federal government to undertake the independent study, has made it clear that major steps must be taken before the November 2008 general election to restore national confidence in the state’s system.

In 2004, Ohio was held up as an example of all that went wrong with the balloting in the presidential election. Republican President Bush’s slim victory in the Buckeye State assured him a second term, but it also brought charges from Democrats and others that then Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who was the co-chairman of Bush’s statewide campaign, had so mismanaged the election that hundreds of voters were disenfranchised.

Against that backdrop, Brunner pledged in her campaign last year that Ohio would not suffer the same public ridicule and accusations in next year’s presidential contest.

Must-win state

The state is once again in the must-win category in the general election, which is why the review of the voting system ordered by the secretary of state was a move in the right direction.

Now, the governor and other state officials must not delay in addressing the findings.

Whether there is time — and the money — to replace all the touch-screen machines with paper ballots that would tabulated by optical scanners remains to be seen.

Brunner has submitted numerous recommendations to Strickland, House Speaker John Husted and Senate President Bill Harris to make the electronic voting system less vulnerable to security breaches.

One the recommendations that deserves special attention is the expanded use of absentee ballots.

The secretary of state’s office and local boards of elections should publicize the state’s “no fault” absentee voting. It would not only meet Brunner’s preference for paper balloting, but would address a persistent problem on election day: the lack of trained precinct workers — which results in confusion and disarray at polling places.