Punch cards still on in ‘04

[InkAddict]

Not all in state to use electronic ballots

By Jim Bebbington
[e-mail]
and William Hershey
[e-mail]

Poll included - VOTE!

COLUMBUS | It won’t be feasible for all Ohio voters to use new electronic voting machines in next March’s presidential primary, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said Tuesday.

As a result, voters in many counties will continue to use old punch-card ballots in the primary, Blackwell said.

The number of counties using the technology will be determined by the amount of federal aid available to purchase the new technology and how well security concerns have been satisfied, he said.

David Kennedy, a Blackwell staffer, told Montgomery County commissioners Tuesday of the reasons for delaying the decision to move ahead with new voting systems and urged them to push Congress to appropriate all the money it has promised to fund the federal Help America Vote Act.



Results at posting time:

Yes 115
No 40
Total Votes 155

[AP]

1. Once, since 2000, I was a poll watcher in a punch card jurisdiction

And the people who worked it told me that in all the years they supervised their station they NEVER had a problem with the punch card ballots -- not one undervoted ballot ever. They said that the key is keeping the punch card machines clean. If they fill up with chads, you can't punch all the way through. If they don't fill up with chads, the machines are 100% effective.

I read that, in West Palm Beach, they hadn't cleaned out the machines in 9 elections in two years. I've read alot of things that made me think that Jeb Bush began plotting the 2000 coup in 1998. That those machines hadn't been cleaned since about 98 confirms my suspicions.

As for punch card ballots in OH, I'd rather use a punch card ballot than use a touch screen ballot. Just make sure the machines are cleaned out of all the chads.