Election board angered by absentee ballot delay
By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer   24 October 2006

Members of the Summit County Board of Elections are angry with the three-week delay in printing absentee ballots for the Nov. 7 election, with one member suggesting a conspiracy may be in the works and a federal investigation warranted.

``It's unacceptable what's gone on here and I'm outraged by it,'' said Democrat Wayne Jones, board chairman at a board meeting this morning. ``I think there could be a conspiracy with not getting us our ballots.''

Jones said after the meeting that he is considering calling in federal prosecutors to look into what happened with the ballots. Because federal offices, including one of Ohio's two U.S. Senate seats and two U.S. House races, are on the ballot Jones believes the ballot delays could warrant calling in federal authorities to investigate whether the move was a purposeful attempt to suppress votes. ``Summit County is a Democratic county,'' he said.

The layout for absentee ballots was sent to the printer on Oct. 6, but the first batch of ballots did not arrive at the board until Oct. 19. It was that day when staff discovered the second page of the ballot was filled with typographical errors.

The board did not receive all of its corrected absentee ballots until Monday, nearly three weeks after absentee voting had begun.

Election System & Software spokeswoman Jill Friedman-Wilson, was not at the meeting and said she would have to look into the matter before she could comment. ES&S is the maker of county's optical scan voting machines and has the contract to print the county's ballots.

Because it uses ES&S voting machines, the county must contract with an ES&S-certified printer to produce its ballots. Three Ohio printers, Miami Printing of Cincinnati, Dayton Legal Blank and Barrett Brothers of Springfield, are certified by ES&S.

However, when the county requested bids, ES&S was the only company to submit one. ES&S then subcontracted with Miami Printing for the Summit County job.

Jones, who voted against the contract with ES&S, said he believed then and maintains today that the move is in violation of anti-trust laws. He believes that the set up gives ES&S the power to withhold its certification from printers who chose to bid independently for ballot-printing work. He believes that's why none of the three printers were willing to bid independently on the job.

Jones said he believes the county could face lawsuits from voters who were not able to vote.

Republican board member Alex Arshinkoff suggested the county could take legal action against ES&S over the matter.

``We can't have this. It's not like ES&S hasn't been in the elections business,'' he said.

Don Mummey, the ES&S official in charge of assisting the county with its elections, stood before the board today to explain the printing problems and delays. ``I share every one of your concerns and I have the frustration you have and more,'' he said.

Mummey said the problem with the typos and spacing issues on the second ballot page was due to a computer problems because the font used to print the ballots was not embedded into the computer file that contained the ballot language. Earlier delays were caused by problems printing the color-coding on ballot stubs, he said.

Board staffers in charge of ballot layout, however, questioned why the font was only a problem on one page of the ballot something Mummey could not explain. Due to a glut of candidates and issues, the county's ballot is two sheets, front and back, for a total of four pages. Only the fourth side of the ballot was misprinted.

Board member Russ Pry said he was ``appalled by the lack of response'' from ES&S when the board asked ES&S officials for explanations.

``After this election, I think we'll want to revisit our contract issue with ES&S,'' he said.

Republican board member Jack Morrison asked Mummey whether ES&S would be willing to compensate the county for the money it will be spending on overtime to get the ballots in the mail. Mummey said he was not the able to respond to that request. ``Well call your boss and find out and let us know,'' Morrison said.

Absentee voting may hit an all-time high this year the first time that state law has allowed no-excuses absentee voting. So far, the county has more than 23,000 requests for absentee ballots by mail. Those who receive ballots must mail them back stamped with 87 cents postage so they arrive at the board by Nov. 7.

Absentee voting, by law, should have begun on Oct. 3. Voting did not start that day, however, because it was not until Oct. 5, that the Ohio Secretary of State's office broke a tie vote over the wording of a countywide charter amendment issue, to allow the ballots to be printed. The county's ballot layouts arrived at the printer on Oct. 6.

Absentee voting has been ongoing at board offices since Oct. 5, because the board is able to use its two ``ballot-on-demand'' printers for absentee ballots. Those printers, however, are not capable of printing the large numbers needed for absentee ballots by mail.

The board, however, discussed the possibility of buying more printers or ones with greater printing capabilities to print absentee ballots in-house in the future to avoid the problems.