Posted on 12/15/2007 9:56:04 AM PST by DeaconBenjamin
A long-awaited review of Ohio's election systems finds 'critical security failures.' The secretary of state wants to start over with new systems, a pricey option.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner called for a bipartisan panel to craft changes and the legislature to pass them by mid-April.
Reacting to a study that concluded all voting systems used in Ohio have "critical security failures," Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner yesterday proposed changing how Ohioans vote, where they vote and how their votes are counted.
Brunner wants the state to replace the electronic touch-screens used in 57 of Ohio's 88 counties, as well as the optical-scan systems used in the other counties, with a system using a paper ballot scanned at a central location such as a county elections board.
She also wants to eliminate voting in neighborhood precincts in favor of setting up large "vote centers," where voters from five to 10 precincts would cast their ballots -- and voting would start 15 days before an election.
All of the proposed changes stem from a $1.9 million, top-to-bottom review of Ohio's voting systems this fall using academic and corporate computer experts to address voter concerns about the security and reliability of the machines.
Ohio already has spent more than $100 million in federal money since 2004 to replace its punch cards and other older voting systems, and it's not clear how the Republican-controlled legislature will view the proposals from Brunner, a Democrat.
Still, the voting systems in Ohio also are used throughout the country. When asked whether her report is an indictment on how the nation votes, Brunner said, "I suppose it would be."
The study found security risks ranging from minor to severe, and that "fairly simple techniques" sometimes could be used to compromise vote results -- such as using a magnet and a personal digital assistant to tamper with some machines.
County elections officials selected to review the part of the study by a team of academic experts said the findings are "generally based on pure supposition and bias." The reviewers "did not initially agree with the report or the conclusions contained within the report" by the researchers.
But Brunner said the systems do not meet minimum industry standards for computer security. "And if we're going to use computers for voting, they need to be as secure as everything else we use in our everyday lives," she said.
Brunner acknowledges that there's not enough time to make significant changes before Ohio's March 4 primary, except in troubled Cuyahoga County, where she wants touch-screens replaced with optical-scan ballots immediately.
But Brunner seeks the statewide election overhaul by the presidential election next fall, when the world once again may be watching Ohio.
Although election observers still were digesting the hundreds of pages in the report yesterday, initial reaction was mixed.
Peg Rosenfield, elections specialist for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said although she has concerns about some of Brunner's recommendations, the state has no choice but to make changes.
"There is so much distrust of those (touch-screen machines), there's no way we're ever going to have an election anyone trusts," Rosenfield said.
But Dan Tokaji, an Ohio State University associate law professor and elections expert, said Brunner's proposals are not justified and would cause more problems than they attempt to solve.
"I suspect this thing will be dead on arrival once it gets to the legislature," he said.
House Speaker Jon Husted attended Brunner's news conference yesterday announcing the study findings to show that the review of the report and any action taken on it will be done in a bipartisan way.
But the Kettering Republican said he wants to consult with county elections officials before reaching any conclusions.
"There's risk in every (voting) system," Husted said. "You have to assess what we have now versus what the risks would be of a new system, what the cost is."
Brunner did not provide cost estimates for any of the proposed changes but said the state could find funding if it is a priority. Husted said the only state source he could think of was Ohio's $1 billion rainy-day fund.
Brunner, a former Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge, wants a bipartisan team of legislators and members of her office and the governor's office to craft legislation that she thinks would need to be passed by mid-April.
Matthew Damschroder, Franklin County elections director and president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, said any system can be improved and that officials will work with Brunner on what can be accomplished in the short term as well as on a long-term reform agenda.
The three vendors that make the systems used in Ohio -- Premier Election Solutions, Election Systems & Software and Hart InterCivic -- all issued statements defending their devices as accurate and reliable.
Premier, formerly Diebold Election Systems, said many of the problems outlined in the Ohio report previously had been identified, and that the next generation of systems being considered for federal certification addresses them.
ES&S said that proper security procedures are as important as the voting system used, and some observers argue that current systems are more secure than having paper ballots taken from polling places to a central location for counting.
There are other concerns, including whether voters will want to leave their familiar precincts and whether the vote centers can run effectively with optical-scan ballots because of the volume of different types of ballots needed for the number of precincts involved.
Regardless, the report is bound to get attention nationwide and help advance the ongoing discussion about the future of voting, said Dan Seligson, editor of www.electionline.org, a nonpartisan Web site covering voting procedures.
"I think the rest of the country notices what happens in Ohio elections," he said.
Democrat disenfranchisment...
As an Ohio resident....this stinks like a florida power grab....
They KNOW ohio is key...so they are laying the ground work to STEAL it...
Prior to the 2006 election, my county used punch cards. They were easy to use, obvious to see if you failed to punch completely (which I had never even thought about before 2000 Florida) and provided their own paper trail. The entire voting machine including the suitcase/stand was very inexpensive. Of course, criminal voter fraud election workers could have punched extra cards, but short of that, were efficient and cheap.
The whole state had to change to the touch screen in 2006. Cheaters will always find a way to cheat.
No, the Stalinist aspect is the “paper ballot scanned at a central location such as a county elections board.” As Joe said, it doesn’t matter who votes — what matters is who counts the votes.
The best system I’ve seen is the paper ballot, marked with pencil, and read optically.
Assuming that is not a rhetorical question, I guess for speed and accuracy.
Absolutely correct.
As one of her heroes said, "It's not who votes, it's who counts the votes."
So is Mayor Daley of Chicago. And most Democrat machines in the country.
The punch card ballot is the preferred system for vote fraud. Not just because of the "chads" made famous in Florida, but because there are so many low-tech ways to add votes for your candidate and spoil votes for the opposing candidate.
Gosh, I would hate to be a Republican on the OH ballot in 2008 — there will be no mercy shown.
They won’t have to steal OH — Taft, Voinovich, and the short guy have already done that perfectly well to the benefit of HRC.
That’s we we have used for a number of years. Even us Iowans can figure it out.
Allow voting for 15 days? How much time does the DNC need to corrupt the process?
Oh no they don't! This is a recipe for disaster and fraud out the wazoo. BTW, didn't the democrats just win big in 2006? Since they want to change everything, was their win "illegitimate"?
How tough can it be to have a piece of paper on which you vote, and the paper is read and counted by a computer? If (when)there is a dispute, the paper ballots can be recounted.
In light of the reaming that some of those punch cards in Florida are suspected of having received, those old ‘fill in the bubbles’ cards seem to be a good idea. My kids did it in grammer school. If a person is not smart enough to fill in bubbles on a sheet of paper, perhaps they should not bother to vote.
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