Posted on 10/12/2004 11:29:11 AM PDT by tang-soo
Officials busy trying to keep Franklin Co. from becoming an Election Day debacle
Kevin Kemper
Business First
Matthew M. Damschroder expected 2004 would require long hours at the office.
The director of the Franklin County Board of Elections knew a presidential election would bring a spike in voter registration and turnout. But even he is surprised by the extraordinary measures the run-up to the 2004 general election has demanded of his staff.
"In order to keep up with the volume of voter registration, we've been working 12-hour shifts, two shifts a day, six days a week," Damschroder said. "Some have even been working voluntarily on Sundays."
For many election observers, Ohio is the swing state in a presidential election that is expected to be decided by several swing states. And with Franklin County serving as the fulcrum between Ohio's traditionally Democratic-leaning northeast and its Republican-heavy southwest, the county already has gotten more than its share of attention from the candidates and the national media.
That has county Board of Elections officials taking extra precautions to ensure voting Nov. 2 is smooth and efficient. No one in the county wants to see Franklin County become 2004's version of Palm Beach County, the poster child for the Florida voting debacle four years ago.
"Ohio is ground zero in a high-stakes presidential election," said Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's top elections official. "You would have to have the imagination of Jonathan Swift to think that this election will be business as usual." 'Margin of litigation'
But even with the extra effort, experts expect the possibility of disenfranchised voters and worry that post-election lawsuits loom.
Given the rancor of the presidential campaign, Blackwell said he fears Election Day could deteriorate into teams of lawyers "yelling at 73-year-old poll workers." He also worries those lawyers will file lawsuits that dispute everything about the election if the outcome is decided by 1 percent or 2 percent of the vote, or what Blackwell calls "the margin of litigation."
In the 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore carried Franklin County with 48.8 percent of the vote, to George W. Bush's 47.8 percent. Gore's 4,156-vote victory margin was a slim 1 percent of the 414,074 total votes cast for president in Franklin County.
But Bush carried Ohio's 21 electoral votes on his way to being elected president by winning 50 percent of the statewide total, to Gore's 46.5 percent.
Ohio has 20 electoral votes up for grabs in 2004, seventh-most in the nation.
Eddie Hailes Jr., a Washington, D.C., attorney working for the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition, said the group is taking measures to prevent problems on Election Day.
The group, he said, "is recruiting and training lawyers and people who will be available on Election Day to monitor and prevent or respond to any irregularities."
The coalition is made up of civil rights groups, advocates for low-income taxpayers, the League of Women Voters and several labor unions, Coming heavy vote
Dan Tokaji, an attorney and assistant professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, said a major problem in the 2000 election was a paucity of poll workers at many precincts. He also said many votes from punch card ballots, which are still in use in parts of Ohio, were lost because voter intent couldn't be determined or because voters mistakenly invalidated their ballots by voting incorrectly.
"Polling place operations were a huge problem in 2000 and we can expect them to be a huge problem in 2004," Tokaji said. "It's estimated that over 1 million votes were lost (nationwide)."
Others are worried voters may be turned away because their registrations weren't filed in time by their elections boards, or that they may attempt to vote in the wrong polling place.
Blackwell has been adamant that election officials must uphold a state law that says voters not be permitted to vote with provisional ballots if they go to the wrong precinct.
Another potential problem is the sheer number of voters expected on Election Day.
"We have been told by experienced election directors that having about 1,200 to 1,300 people registered for each precinct is the most that you can handle," said Hailes of the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition.
Franklin County had 820,000 registered voters as of Oct. 6, with about 20,000 registration forms filed by the Oct. 2 deadline not yet processed.
That's more than 1,000 voters for each of the county's 788 precincts, assuming they were spread out evenly.
The registered voter total is a 20 percent increase over the 681,949 registered in the 2000 election and 11.2 percent jump over the nearly 736,000 voters registered in this year's March primary election.
"It does suggest that the mechanisms in place could be overwhelmed," said John A. Powell, a Moritz law professor specializing in civil rights and civil liberties. "But from what I've seen and read around the state, Franklin County seems to be one of the better-prepared counties." Franklin County preparations
Damschroder said part of that preparedness can be attributed to a 13 percent increase in the Board of Elections' budget, to $5.3 million in 2004 from $4.7 million in 2003. The county also gave the board a $112,000 supplemental payment in September, and Damschroder said his office may need to ask for more.
That budget increase has allowed Damschroder's office to hire more data-entry workers to keep with the flood of voter registrations.
After a voter registers, it takes the county two days to get a registration on the books, he said.
The county had also been airing public service announcements to encourage people to register and to inform them how to vote.
At least Franklin County won't need to worry about punch card ballots. The county has about 3,000 electromechanical voting machines in use since 1992. The machines use a flashing red light next to each candidate or issue that stops flashing only after voters make their choice.
"It's impossible to punch a hole for Kerry and Bush at the same time, and so it completely prevents an overvote," Damschroder said.
Most precincts will have between two and four machines, but four to six machines will be allocated to precincts where heavy voter turnout is expected. A few machines are left in reserve in case of breakdowns.
Votes are recorded in five separate memory banks on each machine to allow for an audit or recount.
Damschroder expects it will take voters about three-and-a-half minutes to vote the entire ballot. He's hoping the wait at the polls for most voters will not be more than 15 minutes.
The county should have enough poll workers for its 788 precincts this year, Damschroder said, thanks to a state law that was passed in May allowing county employees to take off work with pay to work at the polls on Election Day. In addition, several Central Ohio companies, including American Electric Power Company Inc. and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, are allowing some employees to volunteer at the polls as well.
Poll workers get $95 for working a full day, which starts at 6:30 a.m. and ends at 7:30 p.m.
"I don't think that chaos is what we'll see," Damschroder said. "I think we'll see unprecedented levels of turnout that will require additional work."
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