Posted on 01/14/2005 11:02:46 AM PST by Robert357
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) County election officials plan to ask Ohio's secretary of state to reconsider requiring the statewide use of paper ballots.
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the state's top election official, on Wednesday ordered Ohio's 88 counties to use optical scan machines, which read the marks voters make on paper ballots.
If the cash-strapped counties do not purchase the machines from two state-approved companies, they forfeit their share of the $106 million in federal Help America Vote Act funds allotted to purchase voting machines and would have to pay for the conversion themselves.
Michael Sciortino, president of the Ohio Association of Elected Officials, said Thursday the association plans to ask Blackwell to reconsider his decision.
``This flies in the face of decades of tradition and law in Ohio that say local counties choose their own voting systems,'' said Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections.
Elections officials also worry that long-term cost of printing ballots will overtake the short-term savings from optical scan systems. Damschroder estimated that Franklin County would spend $1 million printing ballots in every year with three elections.
Blackwell said the optical scan machines are the only option the state can afford with the money allotted to buy machines for the required conversion from punchcards. Several counties had been considering touch-screen voting machines, which Blackwell estimated would cost $180 million for the entire state. Congress made the secretary of state responsible for how the Help America Vote Act funds are used and liable if the state is not in compliance with the act.
First they said that voters were disenfrancised and minority votes were suppressed by the long lines at the polls and so the state-wide vote for Bush should be contested.
Next the Dem's did their little act in Congress with the Electorial College vote siting irregularities in Ohio. Boy was I moved at the sight of the bitch senator from California shedding a tear (NOT!)
Now the local Dem's are getting what they asked for (sort of). The State is saying they never want to be embarised again by this kind of thing. But now choosing a voting method becomes a local control issue and the state is trying to blackmail the local areas.
WELL if the state is to keep from being a national embarisment, it had better get the various local folks to adopt uniform voting methods.
Message to Dem's.....you can't have it both ways.
Their plan is to institutionalize areas of election protest in all future elections so they will have some shot at publicity and some way of staying connected to historic voter groups, even though they will no longer be able to deliver past "pork" and government money.
I have lived in Clermont County, Ohio for 12 years, and this is the ballot we have used all 12 years! It is a fill-in-the-dot scantron sheet. Very easy -- no hanging chads. Just fill in the dot with the pencil they give you, and voila! You have voted! Don't see what the problem is.
This is a recipe for election chaos - Something the Dems would love since it would allow them to use Wash St. type tactics to steal elections. While a statewide standard for voting machines may fly in the face of "Decades of tradition" I think opposition to it flies in the face of COMMON SENSE.
I agree it can work well, or it can be subverted.
In Washington State in King County, the Democratic Party machine used such ballots along white out and marking pens that obstructed the voters original marks to "enhance" the ballots by determining "voter intent," so they could be better read by optical scanners in the contested Washington State Governors race.
Even though such actions were against state law the local democratic party controlled elections folks felt it was the only way to "count all the votes."
Again, no matter what system for voting is used the Democratic party will find some way or some approach to mess up elections no and in the future. I feel that the Democratic party desires to make their power base on those that don't trust government.
problem is that your local county election officials will not longer be able to shop around to all of the vendors of voting equipment to collect their bit o' graft.
Bingo.
So the democrats lose in 2000 and whine because their voters are incapable of punching a card or blackening a box or an oval - they wanted machines. Fine. They got their machines. Now they don't like the machines because they cannot prove what the actual votes were without the original paper ballot. Now they want paper again. It doesn't matter what is used. If they lose it will be because of the process, not their lack of support. Someone too stupid to punch a card or blacken a ballor or make an "X" deserves to be "disenfranchised" IMHO.
I see that you understand this perfectly and now understand why the Barf Alert was posted.
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