Elections board d on timeline for voting machines
By BOB BLAKE    LimaOhio.com

   WAPAKONETA ? A couple weeks after making a provisional choice of voting machines, elections officials in Auglaize County on Tuesday were reassured that a date to make a final decision will be in September.
   Board members last month chose optical scan machines from Election Systems & Software, the board?s current election machine vendor. The board opted, however, to reserve the right to reconsider their choice if ES&S gained state certification for its direct-recording electronic voting machines.
   ?Right now there?s only one vendor approved for DREs and that?s Diebold,? board member Larry Fledderjohann said. ?We?ve been using ES&S, and Diebold and ES&S equipment doesn?t intermingle.?
   Auglaize County is one of 32 counties, including Allen, involved in a lawsuit against the Sec-retary of State?s Office about voting machines. The deadline for ing a voting system to use in November had been last week, however, the deadline was extended until Sept. 15, Elec-tions Director Linda Householder said.
   In other business, Householder told board members the Union County Board of Elections is interested in borrowing the electronic voting machines Auglaize County currently leases from ES&S.
   Union County used an optical scan machine during the election in May and is interested in using the electronic machines for a special election in August in order to make a decision about what system to , Householder said.
   Board members present Tuesday expressed no objection to the proposal because the county does not own the machines.
   ?I really don?t see an objection,? board member Vernon Naber said.