http://www.columbusdispatch.com/?story=dispatch/2006/03/05/20060305-C1-00.html
Elections boards and counties stunned by expense;
state aid for training ends after primary
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Mary Beth Lane
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The cost of service contracts for new touchscreen voting
machines has left county elections officials across Ohio in sticker shock.
Many say they need the extra -- and expensive -- technical
support to program and run the machines properly and ensure the integrity of
elections.
But a spokesman said Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell thinks counties can run
the systems themselves after the May 2 primary election, when state-paid
training and technical support ends.
Counties are not required to have extra technical support
after that. It’s their choice.
The full coverage plan offered by Diebold Election Systems
to service its touch-screen voting machines in Fairfield County, for example,
would cost $90,000 a year. Partial-coverage options are available at $60,000
and $21,000 a year.
"It just about blew our minds away," said Alice
Nicolia, director of the county Board of Elections.
In poorer Perry County, a Diebold service contract is out of
the question.
"We just do not have the money," said Janie
DePinto, elections board director. Her board is considering hiring a cheaper
consultant to provide technical support at election times.
DePinto plans to ask county commissioners for more money.
The Fairfield County elections board already has asked
county commissioners for more money for a service contract and other expenses,
and got an angry response.
The elections board is scheduled to meet Monday to discuss
its budget. The $714,000 that county commissioners gave the board this year is
inadequate and they need roughly double, Nicolia has said.
Part of the money sought is to service the county’s 492
touch-screen voting machines and to buy more to meet a new state law requiring one
machine per 175 voters. The county has 93,000 registered voters and is
growing.
Fairfield is among 47 counties that picked Diebold
touch-screens. Costs for service contracts with Diebold were higher than anticipated.
The state has a five-year warranty contract with Diebold and
Election Systems & Software, another company that sold voting machines to
Ohio counties, for the equipment itself. Under the contract, the state is
paying the companies to train and provide technical support to county elections
boards through the May primary.
After that, counties are on their own.
Fairfield was among 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties that used new
voting machines for the first time in November.
Elsewhere in central Ohio, Franklin, Delaware, Pickaway,
Union, Ross and Knox counties will use their Election Systems & Software
touch-screens for the first time in the May 2 primary.
Until then, it’s difficult to gauge whether extra technical
support will be needed, said Janet Brenneman, director of the Delaware County
Board of Elections.
A company spokeswoman declined to discuss the terms of
service contracts that Election Systems & Software might offer its
customers.
When Diebold began distributing proposals to county
elections officials at their conference in January, some were shocked.
So were county commissioners.
"This completely blind-sided the county," said Ray
Feikert, a Holmes County commissioner in northeastern Ohio. "It’s kind of
a back-door expense that no one saw coming."
Diebold’s service contracts are priced depending on county
size, level of support desired and number of elections annually.
For Holmes and Perry counties, the proposals are $16,000,
$35,000 or $50,000 annually. Like Perry County, Holmes County might search for
a cheaper option, Feikert said.
County elections workers should be able to run the new
voting equipment as ably as they did punch-card systems. Blackwell and county
officials agree on that much.
They differ on how long it could take to learn.
Until counties go through a few full election cycles,
including primary, general and special, it makes sense to have technical
support, said Steven Harsman, president of the Ohio Association of Election
Officials and director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections.
"I don’t disagree with (Blackwell’s) concept,"
Harsman said. "But I think it’s too early to let a county be on their own
without support. I look on it as an insurance policy."
Diebold’s full coverage would cost $110,000 annually in
Montgomery County. Harsman’s board is considering buying partial coverage and
using a county information-technology worker for extra technical support.
The Fairfield County elections board has hired its own
information-technology worker and plans to buy partial coverage from Diebold.
"The irony is that the small counties will have a
bigger need for these contracts, but they won’t have the money to pay for
them," Harsman said.
"Elections boards are going to county commissioners, and
commissioners are kicking and screaming. It’s not a pretty situation at
all. But when the dust settles, a high
percentage of counties are going to need this, and county commissioners are
going to have to find the funding."
Blackwell disagrees. He thinks counties won’t need technical
support after May, said spokesman James Lee.
"Certainly there is a learning curve," he
said. "We’re confident, though,
that the boards of elections, with all the training and assistance we have
provided through the May primary, will be well-prepared for the November
election."
Ultimately, it’s up to the counties, though.
"They have to assess their needs and decide for
themselves, working with their county commissioners," Lee said.
State law allows county boards of elections to seek a court
order for funding. Fairfield County board members have told commissioners it
might come to that.
©2006, The Columbus Dispatch
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