Ohio Will Likely Face Big Vote-Counting Problems in 2008

It is a very odd spectacle. Ohio's Democratic secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, who was elected on a pledge to clean up voting problems in her presidential battleground state, is now under attack by would-be progressive allies for her solutions.

And her critics, who on Tuesday said her remedies could disenfranchise tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters in Ohio's primary in March and in next fall's presidential election, are not even aware of the biggest irony of all: Brunner could have solved the same problems months ago if she would have settled a federal voting rights suit from the 2004 election. Instead of working through the federal courts, she is now fighting in Ohio's notoriously partisan political arena.

"All the critics' concerns are valid. But they are confirming stuff that was known months ago and was in the (proposed court) consent decree," said Robert Fitrakis, an attorney, political scientist and journalist from Columbus, Ohio, who -- at the request of Ohio's attorney general -- was part of a legal team that drafted a proposed settlement that contained 50 legal reforms to make Ohio elections more transparent, accurate and accountable. "They have had a rational blueprint in their hands since April."

Instead, Brunner this fall conducted an extensive $1.9 million study of vulnerabilities in Ohio's electronic voting systems and predictably found major problems, and then late last week announced a series of solutions for 2008. Those suggestions were criticized in a teleconference on Tuesday by the New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice, the Verified Voting Foundation, Cleveland State University's Center for Election Integrity and a member of Brunner's own advisory voting rights council.

"No matter what happens, there will be no good answer," said Larry Norden, chair of the Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security, speaking of voting in the March presidential primary in the state's largest county, where Cleveland is located.

"We are aware there is a lot of criticism," said Patrick Gallaway, Brunner's spokesman. "These are all truly recommendations right now. Jennifer Brunner as secretary of state is not going to dictate at this point what she thinks the solutions should be for a fix in Ohio. We want to work in a bipartisan fashion with the Ohio legislature and governor, and figure out what the best solution should be for the state."

Gallaway was not aware of the consent decree that raised -- and would have settled - most of the issues Brunner is now grappling with.

The criticism from voting rights advocates does not come from Brunner's analysis of Ohio's voting problems, but her recommendations to fix those problems. As in a handful of states, Brunner commissioned a major study to evaluate Ohio's voting systems before next year's presidential election. Her evaluation found that Ohio's new paperless voting systems, which were first widely used in 2006, had security and accuracy problems. The study revealed many ways votes and vote counts could be altered.

In response, Brunner made a series of suggestions for 2008. In general, she wants the state to move from using paperless electronic machines to voting systems where people mark paper ballots that are then counted by electronic scanners. That proposal has been adopted in other states and is generally regarded as sound, because using paper ballots means audits and recounts can occur where voter intent can be discerned. New federal legislation to fund that transition will be introduced in Washington this week.

Instead of counting paper ballots at local precincts, however, Brunner said she wanted to create a system of centralized counting locations. She also wants to move to vote-by-mail for special elections. And she urged Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, to adopt a new optical scan paper voting system for the March primary election. That suggestion came after the county's paperless system broke down while counting votes last November in an election with only 15 percent voter turnout.