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Voting machines lawsuit settlement includes free upgrades

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By Lynn Hulsey, Staff Writer Updated 11:21 PM Tuesday, July 20, 2010

DAYTON — Electronic voting machines will be repaired and the Montgomery County Board of Elections will save money on equipment and fees under a settlement with the maker of the problem-plagued touch-screen machines in use locally since 2005.

On Tuesday, July 20, the board agreed to settle its portion of a lawsuit involving Premier Election Solutions, now owned by Omaha-based Elections Systems and Software.

“There will be no cost to the county on this settlement,” said Steve Harsman, director of the board.

The agreement will include free software upgrades that should alleviate concerns over the accuracy of the machines, Harsman said.

The upgrades will resolve persistent machine calibration problems first discovered in 2006, a glitch that caused five ballots to be uncounted in November 2008 and the failure of some votes to upload to computer servers in March 2008. Officials caught some of the problems on election night and others afterward and believe no votes were permanently lost. Other counties have had similar problems with the electronic voting machines. A 2007 state study found serious security failures with the machines, which are used in 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties and cost Montgomery County $6.2 million.

The lawsuit settlement also includes:

A discount on licensing fees worth about $113,000.

The company will give Montgomery County 380 new voting machines, eliminating the need for a future hardware maintenance contract and saving the county $125,000.

The ability to buy new equipment at half price, including two high speed scanners at a savings of $80,000, Harsman said. The scanners would quickly count paper ballots that are now counted by small hand-fed machines, which led to a nearly daylong delay in a final vote count in Nov. 2008.

The complex lawsuit was initiated against Cuyahoga County and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in 2008 by Premier, then part of North-Canton based Diebold Inc. That lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court involved Cuyahoga County’s decision to shelve the company’s machines at Brunner’s request after major election night problems. Brunner’s breach-of-contract counter-claim named 11 counties, including Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Butler. For legal reasons to insure they could benefit from a settlement the counties were named as defendants along with Premier, said Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder.

Harsman said Montgomery County is the first to settle with the company and the pact is likely to be a model for settlements with the others.

ES&S officials could not be reached for comment. Kidder said Brunner will continue settlement talks.

“The county boards are in the best position to know what the counties need, which is why they’ve always been free to reach their own settlement,” Kidder said.

Also on Tuesday, Harsman told the board that the four centralized voting centers used in the July 13 special Democratic Primary were a success. He said the low turnout — 1 percent of all eligible voters — made it hard to conclude how well centralized voting would work in a busier election.

He also said that by Aug. 15 the board will send notices to about 8,000 voters whose registration information doesn’t match information kept by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

The voters will need to contact the board to resolve those discrepancies, said Harsman.

Brunner ordered boards to send the letters.

There was controversy during the 2008 election over mismatches in personal identifying information in the two types of records.

Federal elections law requires comparison of voter and driver records.

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

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