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Official calls for probe in ballot delay
Democrat suggests conspiracy; firm blames legal, technical issues
By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer

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,'' Democrat Wayne Jones said at a board meeting Tuesday. ``I think there could be a conspiracy with not getting us our ballots.''

After the meeting, Jones said he believes the ballot delays could warrant calling in federal authorities to investigate whether the move was a purposeful attempt to suppress votes, particularly since there are federal offices including a U.S. Senate seat on the ballot.

``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. Staff members discovered the second page was filled with typographical errors.

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

Election Systems & Software, which manufactured the county's optical scan voting machines, has the contract to print the county's ballots. ES&S spokeswoman Jill Friedman-Wilson was not at the meeting, but issued a statement that did not address Jones' conspiracy theory directly, emphasizing other reasons for the delay.

``To be clear, there are only two root causes of the situation in Summit County: first, the legal challenge that held up the ballot printing process until after absentee voting was to begin; and, second, a technical issue with the formatting of files,'' the statement says.

She said in the statement that ballot printing typically takes 10 to 14 days, and even with the delays, Summit's ballots were delivered within that time frame.

Jones said he believes the county could face voter lawsuits.

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, told the board Tuesday: ``I share every one of your concerns, and I have the frustration you have and more.''

Mummey said the problem with the typos was due to 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 problems printing the color-coding on ballot stubs, he said.

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 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 able to respond to that request. ``Well, call your boss and find out and let us know,'' Morrison said.

Firm submitted only bid

Because it uses ES&S voting machines, the county must contract with an ES&S-certified printer for 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. It then subcontracted with Miami Printing for the job.

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

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 about 29,000 requests for absentee ballots. Board employees were expected to work round the clock to get the backlog of ballots in the mail.

Those who receive ballots must mail them back stamped with 87 cents postage so they arrive at the board by Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m.



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