Voting switch challenged in Ohio

By M.R. Kropko
Wire Service Correspondent

CLEVELAND (AP) – A federal lawsuit filed Thursday seeks to block Ohio’s biggest county from switching to a paper ballot voting system for the March 4 presidential primary.
The American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit argues that the system to be put in place in Cuyahoga County violates voters’ constitutional rights because it doesn’t allow them to correct ballot errors.
With more than 1 million registered voters, Cuyahoga County plans to send paper ballots filled out by voters to a central location – the Board of Election’s warehouse near downtown Cleveland – to be scanned and counted.
But such an optical-scan system with centralized vote tabulation does not give voters notice of ballot errors and an opportunity to correct mistakes that could invalidate votes, the ACLU alleges. It is therefore unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act, the suit says.
“ We take no position on what kind of voting technology is used so long as voters have the chance to check their ballots for mistakes before casting their vote,” said Carrie Davis, staff attorney for the ACLU.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court names Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and the county’s three commissioners. It was assigned to Judge Kathleen O’Malley. No hearing date had been set.
The county is hurriedly switching from electronic touch-screen machines to the new system after prodding from Brunner, a Democrat who considers optical-scan voting to be more secure.
When the county’s four-member elections board was deadlocked on making the change last month, Brunner broke the tie.
County elections board chairman Jeff Hastings said the lawsuit would not affect preparations for the primary.
“ We’ll continue with our business, which is to provide fair, transparent elections,” he said.
A message requesting comment was left Thursday with Jeff Ortega, a spokesman on Brunner’s staff.
In most counties with optical scanners, cast ballots can be immediately counted at the precinct level, allowing a voter to make a correction if a ballot is rejected due to a mistake, such as voting for too many candidates, the ACLU said.
Cuyahoga County elections have been a major concern for Brunner due to persistent problems within the county adjusting to the touch-screen voting system supplied by Premier Elections Solutions.
Brunner authorized a study last year that helped her conclude touch-screen voting can be manipulated. As a result, she wants all 57 counties that use touch screens to switch by November – at an estimated cost of $31 million.
“ Every voting system, paper ballot or not, must give voters a chance to fix a mistake,” said Meredith Bell-Platts, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “With Ohio’s presidential primary only weeks away, Cuyahoga County must abandon its deeply flawed and unreliable voting technology in order to protect the rights of every voter.”
Cuyahoga County’s elections director, Jane Platten, referred questions to assistant county prosecutor David Lambert, who could not be immediately reached.
Ohio was a key political battleground in 2004, and President Bush’s victory over Democrat John Kerry in the state proved to be crucial. Kerry conceded the election after narrowly losing Ohio’s 20 electoral votes.
The switch to scanned paper ballots also means Cuyahoga County’s results almost certainly will take a long time to count, and election officials have already warned that voters should not depend on knowing the outcome on election night.
Brunner has said there is not time for Cuyahoga County to use a precinct-based system in March, but that it will be considered for the November election.
In a 2004 federal case, the ACLU challenged Ohio punch-card voting and central-count optical scans that did not provide the voters with notification of ballot problems. But the ACLU later agreed that Ohio had adopted voting technology that provided adequate notice to voters in 2006.