BBV: Ohio approves voting machines

[Bushfire]

8:53 AM EDT Friday
Ohio approves voting machines
Tony Goins
DBJ Contributor

Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell placed four electronic voting machine manufacturers on Ohio's approved list on Wednesday, signaling the beginning of the end of "hanging chads" in the Buckeye State.

Counties are now free to choose which company they would like to supply them with new voting machines to replace punch-card and lever-operated voting machines. Those machines are in place in 71 Ohio counties, said Carlo LoParo, Blackwell's spokesman. Errors in similar machines in Florida threw the 2000 presidential election into confusion, and the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires they be phased out.

The companies are:

Diebold Elections Systems (Diebold Inc.), North Canton.

Election Systems & Software Inc., Omaha, Neb.

Maximus/Hart Intercivic/DFM Associates (a consortium).

Sequoia Voting Systems (subsidiary of De La Rue International Ltd.), Oakland, Calif.

more...

http://dayton.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2003/09/08/daily34.html

[goobergunch]

1. What about "errors" in similar machines in Georgia?

This is not shaping up to be a good day for Democrats.

[Bushfire]

2. I wonder how much pressure Blackwell (R) was under

There is a lot of work for us to do yet as OH has given its rubber stamp on even optical scan machines that have known security flaws. I was hoping Blackwell had a thread of integrity, but I guess he's been bought off.