"Challengers' - Blackwell VII.A - The Storm Breaks

* Starred parargraphs are updates *

On January 15 the counties submitted unto the secretary their choice for eloctronic voting machine. Lucas County (Toledo) and 8 others missed the deadline. Then, between January 15 and Feb 9 Sequoia dropped out of machine provision, since it was unable to negotiate any contract with the SoS' office. Pending State Controlling Board approval the three remaining companines on Feb 9 were Diebold, ES&S, and Maximus/Heart Intercivic/DFM associates. In addition to e-voting machines Diebold and ES&S also offered an optical scan machine.

Restating the machine cost, warranty protection, and training setup that was previously mentioned (see VI.B), Blackwell noted on February 9 two new salient facts:
1) 133 million taxpayer dollars had been appropriated to the State of Ohio, &
2) the four Ohio counties, Champaign, Clark, Darke and Licking, which had selected Sequoia's machines as their vote recorder of choice, had to rechoose from the other three vendors. under the state-directed implementation process.

In an odd closing note, Blackwell's press release noted that while Sequoia was no longer competing in Ohio, it would "implement Secretary Blackwell’s requested security upgrades in systems it offers to other states."

No new voting machines were installed over the next couple of months due to State Senate bickering, State House infighting, and State Controller Board delaying.

* The fighting began just days after Blackwell signed contracts with the three firms when on Feb 17th, election reform foe, Sen. Jeff Jacobson (R., Vandalia), joined forces with Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo) in urging the State Controlling Board not to release any state or federal HAVA 2002 funds for the machines. Jacobson's not so wise statement was "The law contemplated an extension to 2006. There’s absolutely no justification for rushing to get it wrong." He provided no evidence for his thesis. Fedor likewise asked rhetorically "When you put your vote into that electronic touch screen, how do you know your vote is really counted? When was the last time your computer crashed?" Thus did she link the unique code of voting machines with the code for Microsoft's Window Operating System.

Blackwell prophetically replied

"Ohio is in for a very close presidential race. The folks, who advocate delay, own the problem. This is nothing to be playing petty politics with."

* Blackwell responded on Feb 18th that he could, if he so chose install precinct-count optical-scan devices should the Controlling Board disapprove of his funding request on March 8.

* "I've already been empowered with that authority. This is nothing to be playing petty politics with. This is a serious, serious matter. We need to get out of the punch-card system. There are some legislators that are motivated exclusively by the desire to stop reform. Ohio is in for a very close presidential race, [and] the punch-card system is more inclined to disenfranchise lower-income and minority voters."

* Nevetheless in spite of indications that the Controlling and Jacobson would continue to be recalcitrant, Blackwell went ahead and submitted his plan unto the Controlling Board on Feb. 19. The plan called for e-voting machines in the 25 counties by Nov. 2004 and the rest of the 69 counties would have their machines installed by the Nov. 2005.

* Fedor and Jacobson continued the verbal assault when Fedor sunk to the level of personal insult . She said "I do not believe we are moving in the right direction with [Blackwell's] plan. I question his ability right now." Not only was Blackwell wrong, then, but he was also stupid.

Then on February 25 the Toledo Blade, a frequent media foe of Blackwell, editorially sided with the SoS on the implementation of new voting machines. They wrote that the two bogus claims were that the system could be hacked via the Internet and that paper receipts were necessary for proof of a correct vote. They opined

"Virtually any type of voting system devised by humans can be corrupted by humans, so little is to be gained in a never-ending search for a fool-proof method. Proper voting procedures, painstakingly applied by bipartisan teams of election workers who police each other, have long been the key to fair elections in Ohio. We already have such laws on the books, and there is no reason they cannot be updated to accommodate all the exigencies of electronic voting.

The Blade further advocated that paper receipts would allow corrupt political operatives to buy votes, and, additionally, the printers of the receipts could run out of ink & paper at bad times, thereby leading to long lines and extra expenses.

Next the legislature got involved when the Senate Finance Committee established a joint, bipartisan House-Senate, 10 member legislative committee on late Friday Evening, Feb 27 with the mandate to look into the security concerns and the need for a verifiable paper trail. Claiming that Blackwell had somehow slipped 5.8 million dollars for new voting machines past the 124th General Assembly, Jacobson called for some accounting since no one had asked for new punch card machines.

* Whisps of retribution made their presence known when it turned out that Blackwell and his office had been investigating the fund-rasing tactics of Speaker of the House, Larry Householder, and his chief fundraiser-Kyle Sisk.

* Blackwell responded to the Wormtounge-esque tactics of White and Householder on Saturday, Feb. 28 with the statement

"The proposed delay would virtually eliminate the possibility of any deployment of new voting machines in 2004. With Ohio slated by both national parties as a battleground state, the possibility of a close (presidential) election with punch cards as the state's primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity... As we have gone to great lengths to include the legislature in this process, it seems reasonable to request your assistance to aid us in clarifying your intentions"

*After warning of dire consequences for the Nov. 2004 election should a paper-trail be adobpted, Blackwell pointed out that the Emperor was not wearing any clothes, since only 2 out of the General Assembly's 132 lawmakers showed up at a Feb 19 briefing session.

Knowing that Jacobson was blowing smoke up the voters you-know-what, Blackwell, citing the Election Reform Fund line items in Gov. Taft's budget, continued

"Big decisions, big plans, big designs were always shared with the legislature. I found it particularly interesting that a member of the Senate Finance Committee would, in fact, say he had not a clue that this issue was before this committee. Now whose fault is that? Our process has been very, very transparent. Either these legislators are making decision with their heads in the sand or they have a very selective memory, [having] a memory gap... Some might have snoozed."

Knowing whereof he spoke Blackwell was referring back to Aug - Oct of 2001 when Jacobson had killed any attempts at reforming the State's voting machines. Jacobson might have forgotten about their struggle, but more than likely he was grandstanding, acting very Janus-like.

* Seeing that they were losing on that issue the opponents changed tactics and criticized the 15.3 million dollar media contract givent to the New York Firm Burson-Meller. This firm delivered the message for the new $20 dollar bill rollout, the U.S. Census, and the U.S. Postal Service unto to the 9 media markets, the 7.2 million registeredvoters and the five different voting systems. Their criticism centered on the fact that Blackwell,as a future governor's candidate, was giving his name and face to a two-year voting campaign at the tax-payer dollars.

On March 8 knowing that his measure would go down to defeat Blackwell still submitted four requests to Ohio's Controlling Board, a subcommittee of the Office of Management & Budget, for release of the HAVA 2002 money from the Election Reform Fund. This request was in line with the mandated law for the establishment of a seperate fund, which in this case was budget line item 050-613, to implement voting machine improvements.

Meanwhile at the national level, Kerry cameback to dominate in Iowa and New Hampshire and he proceeded to steamroll his way to victory in almost all the rest of the primaries. Governor Dean won Vermont's delegates, Senator Edwards's won North Carolina's delegates, and General Clark won Oklahoma's delegates. By mid-February and early March the Democratic nominating process was all over and Kerry had the nomination sowed up, except for Ohio's Dennis Kucinich who insisted on running and finishing near the bottom in almost every single county.

Please e-mail the Editor-in-Chief with any questions.