Panel may urge paper receipts for electronic voting machines

04/07/04
Julie Carr Smyth Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus - A legislative panel is poised to recommend what the most strident critics of electronic voting machines have demanded for months: paper receipts for voters.

Depending on its specifics, the proposal has the potential to delay for years a statewide conversion from punch cards to electronic machines that is scheduled to reach about a third of Ohio counties before November.

The idea is for voters using new touch-screen machines to see their ballot in writing - probably under glass - before leaving the polling place. Voting rights advocates, academics and computer scientists have pushed loudly for the added safeguard in the wake of studies, including one in Ohio, that found security flaws with the electronic systems.

Where the committee's recommendation might go, however, is difficult to say.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Ohio's chief elections official, has opposed the added technology as costly, impractical and unnecessary - although he reserved judgment Tuesday until he hears from Senate President Doug White on the proposal.

The three machine makers that Blackwell has certified to provide touch-screen voting booths to Ohio counties say they haven't developed the technology.

Some key lawmakers - including three sponsors of the federal Help America Vote Act that's helping to pay for new machines, and State Sen. Randy Gardner, who chairs Ohio's House-Senate ballot security committee - oppose the mandate.

"It creates another risk, another feature that can go wrong," said Gardner, a Bowling Green Republican. "I'm not convinced that it's appropriate at this point in time."

Gardner said he would vote no if recommendations that the panel hammers out today make it into legislation - which may be necessary to stop the rollout already under way in 29 counties. But he said nearly all the other committee members favor the idea. Two other states, California and Nevada, recently passed legislation requiring such a "voter-verified" paper trail.

Under the federal law, new voting machines are already required to produce a paper printout of all votes cast, known as an audit trail, for cross-checking electronically tabulated totals. Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo fears opponents of the technology view the touch screens as entirely paperless.

He said 1.1 million Ohioans and 55 million Americans use electronic machines, which have been around for a decade.

"The solution to make those safer is to introduce unproven, untested technology, which is of concern to us," he said.