Punch-card ballots, provisional voting biggest issues in Ohio, experts say

Will Ohio turn out to be the Florida of 2004? That’s the question many election observers are asking as they contemplate the list of what could go wrong at the polls Nov. 2 in the Buckeye State. Doubts continue about voting equipment, especially punch-card ballots. Disputes about provisional voting are unresolved. New voters have signed up in record numbers. All this and the possibility for other glitches are why experts say Ohio has the greatest potential for the chaos and court battles Florida faced after the 2000 election.

"Ohio is ground zero for election problems in November 2004," said Daniel P. Tokaji, a voting-rights lawyer and assistant law professor at Ohio State University.

"Given the choice of where to go to watch election problems, I’d probably head to Cleveland and Ohio in general," said Dan Seligson, editor of electionline.org, a nonpartisan Web site covering voting procedures.

Lawsuits already have been filed, and parties and campaigns are recruiting armies of lawyers and volunteers to keep a close eye on voting across the state.

Election officials and party leaders say they hope it all goes smoothly and that there’s a clear winner after the votes are counted.

But if the race is close — as polls suggest — every problem will be scrutinized and lawsuits challenging the results may be inevitable, experts say.

Superior election laws

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has raised the specter of bands of lawyers screaming at 70-year-old poll workers if the race is within 1 or 2 points — what he is calling "the margin of litigation."

Democrats and other groups already are accusing Blackwell, a Republican, of making partisan decisions to suppress Democratic votes — such as initially requiring that new voter-registration cards be printed on a certain thickness of paper.

Still, Blackwell argues that Ohio didn’t face the problems that Florida did in 2000 because it had a superior election system and was better prepared to conduct a fair election.

Experts also say Ohio is better able to handle scrutiny than Florida because it has better election laws, uniform recount standards and bipartisan oversight at county election boards.

"There’s nothing to suggest that a Florida fiasco is going to visit Ohio," Blackwell said.

But with a crush of new registrations and intense voter interest, problems are bound to occur and be magnified by a close election, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

"I’m very pessimistic," he said. "The turnout is going to be massive, and (election boards) just aren’t ready."

Biggest questions

At the top of many observers’ lists of what could go wrong in Ohio is the voting equipment.

After the problems and controversy with punch-card ballots during the Florida recount in 2000, Ohio committed to replacing the antiquated devices by the March 2004 primary.

But questions about the security of electronic voting machines and other problems delayed the purchase of new equipment. Most Ohioans who used punch cards in 2000 will do so again on Nov. 2.

In the last election, votes for president weren’t counted on nearly 82,000 punch-card ballots in Ohio because machines found no chads — or more than one — punched.

An analysis of the 2000 results shows that punch-card machines had the highest rate of lost votes among the four types of voting equipment used in Ohio.

Although Ohio law defines what constitutes a legal vote on punch cards — eliminating any dispute over "hanging chads" — use of the machines leaves the state open to possible legal challenges, experts said.

The American Civil Liberties Union already has sued Blackwell on grounds that punch cards violate the rights of voters — especially minorities — because the cards pose a greater risk that their votes won’t be counted. A ruling on that case isn’t expected before the election.

Blackwell has previously said that the use of punch cards "invites a Florida-like calamity."

Other potential problems, such as provisional voting, have surfaced and triggered lawsuits.

For more than a decade, Ohio has offered provisional ballots to voters who moved or changed their names and did not update their registration. Those ballots are held for 10 days while workers confirm eligibility before counting them.

The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 required all states to offer provisional ballots after millions of voters couldn’t vote in 2000 because they had been wrongly purged or left off registration rolls.

But Ohio law says it is illegal for voters to cast ballots outside their home precinct, so Blackwell has said provisional ballots will not be issued or counted in the wrong precinct.

The Ohio Democratic Party and other groups have sued, arguing that his directive violates federal law. They think thousands will lose the right to vote because they won’t be directed to the correct polling place, won’t know where to go because of changes in districts and polling locations, or won’t have time to go elsewhere after waiting in long lines.

Blackwell last week said the lawsuits are political and that critics seek a "stop-and-shop" system in which voters can "wander into any polling place" to cast a provisional ballot. That can lead to fraud, he said.

A ruling on those cases could come as early as this week. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Missouri. Ohio is one of 29 states that say provisional ballots cast in the wrong precincts won’t be counted.

Some county election boards have vowed to defy Blackwell if voters demand a provisional ballot, and inconsistent application of rules statewide could lead to lawsuits.

"In terms of things that could go wrong, the implementation of new provisional-ballot rules could be at top of the list in this election," said Edward B. "Ned" Foley, director of an election law center at Ohio State University.

Planning ahead

Some observers say that it may not be clear on election night whether President Bush or Sen. John Kerry carried Ohio. If the margin is smaller than the number of provisional ballots cast — more than 98,000 were cast in 2000 — the outcome won’t be known until those ballots are counted days later.

If the difference is less than 0.25 percent of the total statewide vote, a recount will be automatic, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

There’s a host of other concerns: Will legally registered felons and college students be allowed to vote? Will human error and poll-worker confusion become the subject of challenges?

The League of Women Voters of Ohio and other groups have asked Blackwell to issue more comprehensive guidelines to avoid confusion, Executive Director Scott Britton said.

"I’m concerned that any inconsistency, no matter how small or large, could result in litigation," Britton said. "That’s what we really want to see avoided."