Officials debate touch-screen voting

Touch-screen machines don’t meet minimum security standards, Ohio’s secretary of state argues.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Four years after Ohio decided the presidential election, a partisan debate has erupted over whether the must-win state should scrap its touch-screen voting machines.

The sour attention Ohio got for equipment malfunctions and all-day lines to vote in 2004 not forgotten, the new elections chief is pushing to return to paper ballots because she believes the machines are vulnerable to tampering.

Similar concerns prompted Florida to do the same last year and California to limit use of the touch-screen machines.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s effort has been trounced by many county election officials who say their machines are secure and that a switch ahead of the November election would be rushed. The Republicans who control the Legislature have refused to act on the request from Brunner, a Democrat, for $64 million to switch to paper.

Republicans accuse Brunner of trying to squelch the opinions of those who disagree with her.

“We’ve got turmoil on a variety of fronts,” said Keith Cunningham, a county elections board director and Republican whom Brunner bounced from the three-person Ohio Board of Voting Machine Examiners because she believed he couldn’t have an open mind about voting systems. “There’s an air of suspicion, fear and paranoia out there.”

The Ohio Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit challenging Brunner’s authority to reject the appointment of another GOP county official.

Lawmakers have received letters from voters who like the touch-screen machines and from people who agree with Brunner that they should be replaced.

One Republican asked House Speaker Jon Husted to stand firm against Brunner, saying people had confidence in the state’s voting systems.

“If Ms. Brunner doesn’t get her new voting machines and the Democrats lose Ohio, voter fraud will be shouted from the rooftops,” wrote Kristi Snodgrass, of Kettering. “Don’t give in, no more money!”

The party loyalties of states’ election chiefs — all of them have partisan affiliations, and are either chosen by voters or are appointed — have received attention in recent years because of claims of partisanship against Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000 and Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio in 2004.

The accusations between Brunner and Republican officials are similar to sniping during the era of Blackwell, who was criticized for presiding over Ohio’s elections while serving as honorary co-chairman of President Bush’s re-election campaign in Ohio.

Last summer, Brunner wrote to Congress, saying that any abrupt change in voting technology before the 2008 election could endanger the vote.

It’s a similar argument that Republicans now use against her efforts to get rid of touch-screen machines before November, when presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain will face the winner of the race between Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Brunner says a voting systems study she commissioned after her letter to Congress rocked her confidence in the security of the machines against hackers who could alter vote totals. She wants the touch-screen machines used in about 50 of 88 counties replaced by ballots with ovals that are filled out by voters then scanned by machines.

Brunner said the touch-screens did not meet minimum industry standards for security and were apt to malfunction over time.

“Our testing showed that the software and the equipment is likely to deteriorate, and having it deteriorate or fail when we are likely to have record turnout doesn’t seem like it would be a good option for our state,” Brunner said.

The association representing county election officials said the report didn’t take into account common-sense security procedures.

During the March primary, touch-screen voting machines largely worked well, but Brunner is concerned about long-term performance.

Cunningham, the Republican from Allen County who Brunner ousted from the state board that approves voting equipment, told Brunner that her study was an effort by the Democratic fringe to discredit touch-screen machines.

That, and his insistence to Brunner that he would not vote to disrupt voting machine technology before the 2008 elections, made Brunner feel he had too many preconceptions to serve as an able board member, she said.

Cunningham and Republicans say Brunner just didn’t like his point of view.

Kevin DeWine, deputy chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said anyone against Brunner’s plans is being neutralized.

“She wants to completely eliminate electronic voting machines and go to paper like some of the extreme groups want to,” he said.

Brunner said Republicans are trying to create an unfavorable picture to hurt her when she runs for re-election. She says they are trying to win back the secretary of state’s seat on the apportionment board, which is able to draw legislative districts according to the ruling party’s advantage.

“Obviously, the Republican Party would like to paint a picture that’s favorable to them, but it doesn’t add up,” she said. “In the end this is really all about the apportionment board.”

University of Dayton law professor Charlie Hallinan says Brunner has the authority to chart the state’s course on voting equipment.

“She hasn’t done much that would strike me as being driven by partisanship,” said Hallinan, a Republican.

But other Republicans point to James Crates, whom Brunner didn’t reappoint as chairman of the Hardin County elections board in northwest Ohio after he twice voted against a directive from her office to supplement touch-screen machines with paper ballots in the March primary.

Crates believed the requirement would cost too much for his small county.

“Anybody who dissents at all gets what Mr. Cunningham got and what I got,” Crates said.

The law enables Brunner to remove or suspend elections board members for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, a threshold she said Crates crossed.

The Summit County Republican Party filed the lawsuit against Brunner that is before Ohio’s highest court, claiming she rejected the party’s choice for an elections board position for no valid reason. Republicans criticized Brunner for her acknowledgment during a videotaped deposition that she consulted the local Democratic Party chairman in making her decision.