Coshocton keeps paper election ballots despite state dispute

By ANDREW HIRSCH
Staff Writer

COSHOCTON Despite growing pressure on other counties to choose from new electronic voting systems, Coshocton County will retain its machine-counted paper-and-pencil ballots for now.

But that may change due to a federal election law designed to address the problems of punch-card voting publicized during the disputed 2000 presidential election results in Florida.

Coshocton County doesn't use such a card-oriented system, preferring instead the old-fashioned paper-and-pencil ballots that are counted by optical scanning machines and can be recounted manually.

"It's a good system," said Board of Elections Director Mary Fry. "We've not had any problems."

But enough counties across the state and nation have had enough problems to mandate a switch from punch-card machines to electronic touch-screen machines.

However, since the paper-and-pencil ballots haven't been found to have the same problems as punch-card ballots, the existing systems will be allowed to remain in place for the election of November 2004 at least, Fry said.

Other counties which will be required to use the touch-screen machines have been told by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to make a decision on what machines they will use by Tuesday, or he can invoke his authority to make the decision for them.

However, Montgomery County Board of Elections Director Christopher Heizer said the board isn't yet satisfied that security flaws in the computerized system have been corrected.

Fry said Coshocton county may have to switch to the touch-screen systems by 2006 despite the absence of problems with the optical scan system of paper-and-pencil ballots.

Furthermore, the various computer systems available to counties do not include a "paper trail" which can be used to recount a very close or otherwise disputed election tally, Fry said.