Use of paper ballots can delay local results

The wait on primary results may be long in Trumbull County.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — There should be plenty of paper ballots at the polls March 4 in Mahoning and Trumbull counties for those who don’t want to cast votes on the touch-screen machines.

But the more paper ballots used, the longer the wait for the primary election results, particularly in Trumbull County.

The paper ballots are fed into optical scanner machines that tabulate the results.

In Mahoning, there are two high-speed scanners that can count 250 paper ballots a minute.

Trumbull has six scanners, but each can only scan about 400 to 500 paper ballots an hour, said Rokey Suleman, the county board of elections’ deputy director.

“We might be scanning ballots until 3:30 in the morning,” he said. That would be about 3 to 4 1/2 hours later than usual.

But that’s a worse-case scenario, Suleman said.

“We believe most will vote on the machines,” he said. “But the more paper ballots, the longer it will take.”

The results in Mahoning County should be available about 45 minutes to an hour later than average, said Thomas McCabe, the county elections board’s director.

“It’s not about being fast, it’s about being accurate,” he said.

Results in Mahoning are typically finished by about 10 p.m.

The polls, which open in Ohio at 6:30 a.m., close at 7:30 p.m.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is requiring all counties with electronic, touch-screen voting machines to provide an amount of paper ballots equal to at least 10 percent of the 2004 primary turnout.

The paper ballots would be used by anyone who requests them when voting at the polls.

The decision on the paper ballot requirement came after concerns about the reliability of touch-screen machines were detailed in a report commissioned by Brunner. A Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge dismissed a lawsuit last week filed by Union County commissioners objecting to Brunner’s directive.

In past years, Mahoning and Trumbull, which both have touch-screen machines, typically provided paper ballots for about 9 percent of those who vote at the polls. Only a fraction of voters have used them.

But officials in Mahoning and Trumbull say there will be more voters using paper ballots this year than usual.

So Mahoning had 20 percent of its 2004 primary election vote total printed on paper ballots. That’s more than 13,000 paper ballots and an additional cost of about $10,000.

Trumbull had 27 percent of its 2004 primary vote total on paper ballots. That’s 16,715 paper ballots at an additional cost of $7,700.

The 27-percent figure is the mandated 10 percent on top of the 40 paper ballots per precinct that Trumbull normally provides, said Kelly Pallante, its elections director.

“It’s better to have more than we expect rather than have less,” Suleman added.

McCabe expects turnout on March 4 to be about 50 percent. Turnout should be between 62 percent and 65 percent in Trumbull, Suleman predicts.

For Columbiana County, the paper ballot mandate is not an issue. The mandate is only for counties with touch-screen machines. Columbiana County uses paper ballots.

skolnick@vindy.com