Are paper ballots way to go?

When officials of the Mahoning County Board of Elections revealed last week their plan to bring back paper ballots to replace the electronic touch-screen voting system that has been in use for nine years, we wondered what had changed since January 2008 when board members argued that it was easier to tamper with paper ballots than the touch screens.

Has the technology improved to such an extent in the three years and eight months that those responsible for conducting honest, fair and efficient elections can win over a suspicious public?

Deputy Director Joyce Kale Pesta notes that unlike the system that was in place for 17 years, the one being considered for use in this November’s general election will have optical scanning machines at the polling places, instead of just the board of elections office. Voters will mark their ballots and feed them into the scanners for the votes to be counted. That should prevent any tampering of votes between the time the ballots are cast at the polling places and their tabulation at election headquarters.

But, what about absentee ballots that would have to be fed into the scanners at the board? Employees would be handling them — and therein lies the concern voiced by Vice Chairman Mark Munroe in January 2008.

“You just need someone with malicious intent and a stubby pencil” to tamper with the paper ballots, Munroe said. He and others were offering a stout defense of the electronic touch-screen voting system in the wake of then Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s saying that touch screens were unreliable and could easily be manipulated.

Attorney general’s race

Munroe wasn’t indulging in rhetorical flourish when he used the words “malicious intent” and “stubby pencil.” He was harkening back to the 1990 hotly contested race for Ohio attorney general featuring Democrat Lee Fisher and Republican Paul Pfeifer.

Pfeifer, disputed the results of the election in Mahoning County, and during the ensuing court battles there were allegations that an elections official was seen with a pencil stub in his hand in the area where paper ballots were being counted. Republicans alleged malicious intent and Pfeifer took his challenge of the Mahoning County results all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court. In the end, Fisher was declared the winner by a sliver in the statewide tabulation.

Now, board members are returning to the paper ballots, giving rise to the question, “Can they ensure the sanctity of the paper ballot?”