election 2009

Montgomery County taking precautions with electronic voting machines

Board of Elections officials will double-check all 2,500 machines after elections to ensure no ballots missed.

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By Lynn Hulsey, Staff Writer Updated 11:52 PM Sunday, November 1, 2009

DAYTON— Extra measures will be taken to make sure Montgomery County’s electronic touch-screen voting machines do not miss any ballots this election, said Steve Harsman, director of the board of elections.

Last year during a special hand-count of ballots the board discovered one machine in Trotwood failed to count five ballots during the General Election.

The cause of the problem has not been determined, and further evaluation is being held up pending litigation over larger issues with the maker of the machines, Premier Election Solutions.

The five ballots were tabulated once the problem was discovered and added to the final vote count last December.

Harsman said the original voting machine and original memory card will not be used during this election. He said his office will double-check results from all 2,500 machines after Election Day by comparing summary sheets from each voting machine with the results on the electronic tabulation machines which tally the results from the machine’s memory cards.

That process will not hold up the election results on election night because it will be done after the final unofficial count is completed, Harsman said.

“It’s going to be a lot of additional work, but I think for the integrity of the system and the confidence of the voter, I think we have to do that,” he said.

The county’s procedure for double-checking results has been reviewed by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, said Jeff Ortega, spokesman.

Earlier this year Premier Election Solutions officials blamed the problem on a corrupt memory card. But Harsman said that doesn’t explain why the tabulation machines were able to count those memory cards inaccurately three times with no red flags being raised.

“If a memory card got corrupted, which can happen, it shouldn’t be able to get through the fire wall and the security for tabulation,” said Harsman.

It wasn’t until the hand count turned up the problem and the memory card was put back into the original voting machine that it re-synced and the votes appeared. That is a procedure that would never happen in a normal election count.

County officials did not allow Premier to take control of the memory card and Brunner’s office was to determine a process by which a third party would evaluate the problem. However, she put the investigation on hold because her office and Premier are suing each other in Franklin County Common Pleas Court over problems with the machines statewide.

That case is now in mediation, Ortega said.

Premier in September was acquired by its chief competitor Election Systems & Software Inc., which supplies many Ohio counties with an alternative election system.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7455 or lhulsey@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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