Ohio's Largest Unfunded Mandate
GOP legislators in Columbus are so focused on embarrassing Jennifer Brunner in the hope that she can be defeated in 2010 that they are willing to pass a $10.6 million unfunded mandate onto the taxpayers of Van Wert, Mercer, and Cuyahoga counties.
Am I the only one who remembers back in the 90s when the GOP congress tried to embarrass President Clinton by holding "unfunded mandate days"?
Well, the House GOPs refusal to lift the ban on central counted optical scan machines is just such an unfunded mandate. The three counties I listed above (note that they are two very red and one very blue counties) have made the switch to optical-scan paper ballots counted by a central machine. The county boards of election liked it, the voters like it, and the very heavy participated in March primary went smoothly in all three counties. So why is the GOP now trying to defy the will of the boards election of all three counties?
Because Secretary of State Brunner sits on the apportionment board that will re-draw the state house and state senate district lines after the 2010 census. The GOP is despreately, transparently wallowing in the mud, trying to manufacture embarrassment to Brunner at the expense of a system Ohio voters like, and at the expense of taxpayers who will have to pay for superfluous machines.
UPDATE: Looks like the PD's editorial board agrees with me.
UPDATE 2X: Ohio Daily Blog is reporting that the bill is currently in a House-Senate conference committee, and this is the best opportunity to add the CCOS provision to the bill:
Contact info for conference committee members is after the jump.Today the Conference Committee, composed of legislators from the Ohio Senate and House, is meeting to resolve differences between the two chambers' versions of the state capital budget bill. This is the opportunity for the conferees to add a provision that preserves the central count vote system for Cuyahoga, Mercer, and Van Wert counties. This change, supported by Gov. Strickland, will save Cuyahoga County about $5.5 million and prevent the disruption of changing our voting system yet again between now and the presidential election, expected to be the biggest-turnout election on record. If the county is forced to rent precinct-level counting equipment at this point in time, it will be compelled to use outdated equipment that was federally certified under 2002 standards, since newer and better equipment has not yet received the seal of approval. Also, that old equipment requires the use of memory cards to transport vote totals from precincts to a downtown central location, and memory cards can malfunction or get lost, as has happened in Cuyahoga County in the past.
Please contact the conferees and tell them to keep the central count vote system for November -- and while you are at it also tell them not to put back the disastrous county government "reform" plan that the House had added to the bill:
Telephone: 614/466-8156
Email: sd17@mailr.sen.state.oh.usSen. Tom Niehaus 14th District:
Telephone: 614/466-8082
Email: sd14@mailr.sen.state.oh.usSen. Capri Cafaro 32nd District:
Telephone: 614/466-7182
Email: senatorcafaro@maild.sen.state.oh.usRep. Jay Hottinger 71st District
Telephone: (614) 466-1482
Email Address: district71@ohr.state.oh.usRep. Shannon Jones 67th District
Telephone: (614) 644-6027
Email Address: district67@ohr.state.oh.usRep. Michael Skindell 13th District
Telephone: (614) 466-5921
Email Address: district13@ohr.state.oh.us
Everyone's memory is a little faulty as they conveniently forget Brunner was sued over CCOS & the lawsuit was dismissed only because the Ohio General Assembly passed the law forbidding CCOS, making the lawsuit moot.
Bring back CCOS, the lawsuit gets refiled, and we're right back where we started with no CCOS.
And why advocate for CCOS anyway? It disenfranchises voters.
If you scan the ballots in the precincts, voters are told on the spot whether they've made a mistake on their ballot or whether the ballot is otherwise corrupted. If there is something wrong, they have the opportunity to correct it there.
Central counts make such corrections an impossibility.
Lawsuits have been won on the issue by voting rights advocates. Brunner doesn't care. She'd rather be a champion of the electronic voting is eeeevvvviiiillll crowd.
First of all you're ASSUMING that a precinct scan scenario means that the voters feed their ballots directly into a machine. What if they instead put them in a ballot box which is opened and counted at the end of the day at the precinct? There's no opportunity to correct there, either.
Voters in Cuyahoga County stated that they liked the system that was in place for the March 2008 election. Why fix what ain't broke?
Oh, and finally, before you make an Ass out of yourself with statements like "electronic voting is eeevvvvvilllllll" did you even read the EVEREST report? Did you discover that California's report uncovered similar problems? Did you know that GWB's administration has instituted a similar reprort?
One thing I just don't understand about our society is the unwillingness to listen to scientific opinion. The authors of the EVEREST report were industry experts who found massive vulnerabilities with electronic voting. Don't try to trivialize the problems with statements like the above. You'll just end up looking like an ass.