Counties join lawsuit seeking delay of voting machine certification

Associated Press    12 May 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Two counties have joined a voting-machine maker's lawsuit against Ohio's elections chief and more were expected by Friday's deadline.

Officials in Allen and Franklin counties voted Wednesday to join the lawsuit filed by Election Systems & Software. The Omaha, Neb.-based company wants more time than Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has allowed to get its touch-screen voting machines with printers certified.

Only one vendor, Diebold Election Systems of North Canton, has been certified to offer touch screens with a paper record.

Elections boards in Mahoning and Hamilton counties were expected to meet Thursday to consider joining the case, said Keith Cunningham, director of the Allen County elections board and president of the statewide association of election board directors.

Allen County wants more time for ES&S to have its machine for handicapped voters certified, as required under new election laws. The county currently uses ES&S machines but would have to add Diebold machines for disabled voters, Cunningham said.

With two different sets of machines tallying ballots, "We would have no way to merge those vote totals electronically and would have to do it by hand," Cunningham said Thursday. "That's a very big step backwards."

A message seeking comment was left with Blackwell.

Judge Dale Crawford of Franklin County Common Pleas Court set closing arguments in the case for May 17 - four days after the deadline Blackwell has set for state approval of voting systems.

Blackwell has argued that the state must act now to meet a deadline of upgrading voting machines by the first federal election of 2006.