Honest Voting

Prosecutors in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County have accused Premier Election Solutions Inc. (the rebranded Diebold company) of breach of contract, fraud and negligence, saying they intend to recover funds lost on a botched election.CNN’s AP story says the county quit using Diebold voting machines after problems during the November election. The touch-screen machines cost $22 million.

Premier says its system didn’t cause votes to be lost and blames the county elections board and poll workers for problems.

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Meanwhile, in a story in The Progress, the Clearfield County, Pennsylvania newspaper, Jeff Corcino’s writeup of the county commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday reminded me why touch-screen voting machines continue to be used despite their flaws: touch-screen voting isn’t as messy and lets people go home early. I have to admit that this is the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to optical scanners as “time-consuming” — it’s also the first time I’ve heard anyone complain that optical scanning machines would regularly jam and “eat” ballots. Corcino quotes the county solicitor, Kim Kesner, as saying optical scanning equipment sometimes gives different results for the same ballots each time they are put through the machine. Perhaps the most telling issue was money, since the county purchased its ES&S touch-screen machines with grant money provided through the Help America Vote Act; Kesner says that new machines would have to be purchased with the county’s own money. They’re comfortable with the current level of accuracy of the ES&S machines.

Corvino paraphrases Kesner: “Not everybody is going to like or want the same car, and just because someone chose to purchase a different system than Clearfield County, everybody has different preferences and it doesn’t mean it was a bad or wrong decision.”

I admire, though I don’t entirely respect, Kesner’s serene confidence.

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