×

Election officials pleased with voting system

LISBON — While others may question the integrity of their voting system, the same cannot be said for local elections officials, who are well pleased with the system they use.

The county elections board expressed its confidence in the paper ballot/scanning system used for the past 15 years after the latest accuracy test came back 100 percent.

The Ohio Secretary of State requires county election boards to perform this test after every general election, which consists of counting by hand 5 percent of the total ballots cast in two countywide races and comparing the results with the electronic tally produced by the system.

Five percent of the 50,411 ballots cast came to 2,520.

The secretary of state chose an Ohio Supreme Court race to be counted by hand, while the elections board picked the county recorder’s race. The board then selected several polling places where enough votes were cast to reach the 2,520 threshold. Then teams consisting of one Democratic staff member and one Republican were assigned to count by hand the ballots cast in those polling places.

“Everything we hand counted exactly matched the machine count, so we were 100 percent accurate,” elections board director Kim Fusco reported at last week’s board meeting.

She said once or twice over the years they have been off by one ballot, and it is usually because the machine read a vote that was only partially filled in. Under the county’s system, voters use an ink pen to fill in the oval spaces on their paper ballot.

The voter then feeds their ballot into a scanner to be recorded. When voting ends, the results are downloaded onto a memory card and delivered by poll workers to the election board, where it is downloaded into the tabulation machine and counted.

The county uses a system purchased by Election Systems & Software. The system is 10 years old and the state has provided counties with money to purchase new ones. In Columbiana County’s case, it is receiving about $1 million.

Fusco told the board they have narrowed their choice for a new system to two vendors – Election Systems and Clear Ballot. They have until early January to make a decision, and the board indicated they want to meet again with vendors from both companies before making a decision.

The board intends to stick with the paper ballot/scanner system, and Fusco is glad they are because she believes that is far superior to the touch-screen voting used by other counties. The benefit of paper ballots is they can always be counted by hand if there is a dispute.

“Whoever made the decision or was part of the decision in 2004 (to go with paper ballot), they made the right decision,” she said.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.39/week.

Subscribe Today