Counting votes: It’s no quick task

The number of absentee ballots is much higher than in 2004.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — If you want to find out who won and lost during Tuesday’s Ohio primary, be prepared to stay up late.

Half of Ohio’s 88 counties, including Trumbull, use AccuVote-TSx touch-screen voting machines. While the votes from the machines can be tabulated quickly, those cast on paper ballots can take considerably longer to count.

Counties with those touch-screen machines count paper ballots on optical scanners that can read about 400 to 500 ballots an hour. Trumbull has six of those scanners.

In comparison, Mahoning County uses ES&S I-Votronic touch-screen machines. That equipment allows votes cast on paper to count 250 paper ballots a minute. Mahoning has two scanners.

The amount of people who will go to the polls in those 44 counties and vote on paper ballots isn’t known.

Turnout is expected to be high in Trumbull, reaching 62 percent to 65 percent, said Rokey Suleman, the county board of elections.

“We don’t believe most will vote on paper,” he said. “It remains to be seen. The more paper we get, the longer we’ll be counting. We’re looking at accuracy over speed.”

It’s difficult to tell if the paper ballot count will impact when vote counts are finalized, said Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for the Ohio secretary of state.

“There’s a lot of factors” that could impact when totals are done, including issues with voting machines and those who work the polls, he said. “Ultimately, accuracy is paramount.”

The county elections boards will start counting absentee ballots, done on paper, as soon as the polls close at 7:30 p.m.

A worst-case scenario would have totals in Trumbull being done about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, but that’s highly doubtful, Suleman said.

In Mahoning County, the additional paper ballots should delay results by about 45 minutes, said Thomas McCabe, county elections board director. Columbiana County uses paper ballots.

Trumbull is expecting about 9,000 absentee ballots, about three times the amount of the 2004 presidential primary, Suleman said.

In Mahoning, it will be close to 15,000, compared with 5,400 in the 2004 presidential primary, McCabe said.

Columbiana County’s absentee ballot total is about 2,200, more than double from the presidential primary four years ago, said Lois Gall, its elections board director.

No-fault absentee balloting, enacted in 2005, plays a role in the increase as does some of the local races, the elections officials say.

But all three agree the hotly-contested Democratic primary between U.S. Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is the driving force behind the major increase in absentee voting. McCabe pointed to several Obama commercials that urge people to vote early.

“No doubt that’s what’s driving it,” McCabe said.

Turnout in Mahoning could be as high as 60 percent, McCabe said.

In Columbiana, Gall expects it to be somewhere in the 40-percent range.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner expects turnout statewide to be 50 percent to 52 percent.

None of the counties will pick up paper ballots during Election Day. Only Cuyahoga County, which is going from a touch-screen system to paper ballots Tuesday because of numerous election problems, is permitted to pick up paper ballots during the day.

skolnick@vindy.com