Brunner: Vote system can be fixed by November

The state official doesn’t ‘have a lot of confidence’ in the electronic machines.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — If the state Legislature cooperates, Ohio can overhaul its election system in time for the November general election, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said Wednesday.

More than $100 million was spent to change voting systems in Ohio as a result of problems during the 2000 and 2004 general elections. Brunner said it would cost about $31 million this year to replace touch-screen electronic voting machines in the 57 counties, including Mahoning and Trumbull, that have them, as well as to pay for training and salaries for poll workers.

She couldn’t say what the cost would be for 2009.

Based on a $1.9 million study of electronic voting machines, Brunner said she is convinced that they are unreliable and can easily be tampered with.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence in these machines, but I’m stuck with them,” she told The Vindicator. “We have substandard technology.”

Brunner, a Columbus Democrat, wants to get rid of the machines immediately but said there isn’t enough time to do so statewide for the March 4 primary. Cuyahoga County, plagued by various voting problems, and Van Wert County are switching to paper ballots read by optical scanners for the March primary.

There may be some federal funding, but most of the $31 million would probably have to come from the state, Brunner said.

Brunner is proposing wide-ranging changes for the November 2008 election including eliminating the electronic machines, drastically reducing the number of polling places from 11,099 to 1,163, and allowing people to cast ballots at large voting centers starting 15 days before the election.

The state Legislature needs to act on the proposals by mid-April at the latest for this to be implemented for the November election, she said.

If the Republican-controlled Legislature drags its feet, Brunner said she’d have “to look at what alternatives I have.” That could possibly include decertifying electronic voting machines. Brunner said she thinks she’ll get the Legislature’s cooperation.

Mark Munroe, the Mahoning County Board of Elections vice chairman and the county Republican vice chairman, said that there is no evidence that touch-screen machines have ever been tampered with and that Brunner’s proposals are “unnecessary” and “irresponsible.”

“It’s madness,” he added.

Before Mahoning County started using touch-screen machines in 2001, it used paper ballots with optical scanners for about 20 years, Munroe said. Under the old system, there were problems with people making mistakes, such as voting for too many candidates in a race, and recounts showed the system wasn’t reliable.

It was also easier to falsify election results, said Munroe, a claim that Brunner acknowledged.

“You don’t need to be a political scientist or someone with computer knowledge” to fix a paper ballot election, Munroe said. “You just need someone with malicious intent and a stubby pencil.”

The voting machine study didn’t properly address the potential to tamper with paper ballots, Munroe said.

“The perfect voting machine hasn’t been invented,” he said. “They all have their strengths and weaknesses. In a quest to find one, the Legislature and the secretary of state are causing more problems.”

Also, printing ballots “is terribly expensive,” costing the county up to $250,000 during presidential election years, Munroe said. The county’s voting system cost about $3.6 million.

Another Brunner proposal would allow counties to hold mail-only elections, testing it with the Aug. 5 special election. If it worked, those counties could hold mail-only elections during the November election that includes the presidential race, she said.

Brunner wants to move polling locations from places such as schools and government buildings that don’t have adequate parking space for voters to malls and shopping centers. She said she hasn’t contacted owners of such facilities to see if they’d be willing to have voting at their sites.

Brunner is also interested in having these centralized voting centers be open for 12 hours a day in the 15 days leading to the general election so voters wouldn’t have to wait in long lines.

“This is the 21st century — why should people be restricted to one day to vote?” she said.

Many counties experience a shortage of poll workers, who work 13-hour days during elections. If poll workers were asked to work seven-hour days for 15 days in a row, the cost would be greater, Brunner said. But it would be easier to attract interest from those who want to work the polls but aren’t interested in a 13-hour day, she said.

Brunner said her major goals in the proposed overhaul is to provide fairness and accuracy and make sure the new system is properly implemented.

Though she praised Mahoning and Trumbull officials for the work they’ve done on elections in recent years, Brunner said other counties, particularly Cuyahoga, have had huge problems that have compromised the integrity of the vote.

Also, the electronic voting machines break down over time and the technology used to run them is from the mid-1980s, she said.

skolnick@vindy.com