Support weak for uniform voting machines

MOUNT STERLING - Depending where they live, Ohio voters use electronic touch-screens, fill-in-the-bubble ballots, lever machines or the punch-card ballot design that caused so much trouble in Florida during the presidential election.

The diversity in voting devices doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon.

Elections officials and political scientists debated ways to improve the state's elections system yesterday during Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's elections summit. One thing was clear - little support exists for requiring counties to use the same kind of voting machine.

"I can't see it ever happening," said Antoinette Szuch, director of the Lucas County Board of Elections in Toledo.

"A uniform kind of voting is not necessarily the best direction to take. All counties have different needs," said Jan Clair, director of the Lake County Board of Elections. "Counties need to have the capability to choose what's best for their voters."

Few states require that all counties use the same kind of voting machine. Most states, like Ohio, let counties decide.

Of Ohio's 88 counties, 70 use punch cards, 11 use handwritten ballots, five use electronic machines, and two use lever devices.

Blackwell said the concern isn't that all counties use the same device, but rather that the state has universal rules and standards for machines counties choose to use.

"What we're looking for is uniformity in the standards, not in the devices," he said.

Hamilton County Commissioner John Dowlin said he's worried counties would be left to pay for entire overhauls of their voting systems if the state required a uniform device.

"I don't want to be in an unfunded-mandate situation," he said.

Elections officials across the state agree that money for any improvements to local voting systems would need to come from the federal, state and county levels, Blackwell said.