Ohio Belmont Co Dir of Elections William Shubat says touchscreen better

[MelissaB]

Optical Scan Voting Reviewed

BELLAIRE - Members of the Belmont County Board of Elections next week will review two optical scan voting systems in their office, then they will decide which should be used in the county.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the board will watch a demonstration of the system sold by Elections Systems and Software of Chicago. At 2 p.m., representatives of the Diebold Corp. of Dayton, Ohio, will show their product.
Board members then will meet at 5 p.m. for a special meeting to decide which of the two systems is best for Belmont County voters. The board office is located on the third floor of the Bank One building in Bellaire.

Their review of optical scanning systems comes just one month after Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell announced that optical scanning voting machines would be "the uniform system of election in Ohio," and not touchscreen voting machines.

>>>snip

With the optical scan system, the voter marks a paper ballot with a pencil and it is fed into a reader by the pollworker.

The voter then gets to keep the paper ballot "to do whatever they want with it," explained Belmont County Director of Elections William Shubat.

"(Optical scan) is the next step up from what we have," he said. "It's a good system, but touchscreen is better. We have to have a voter verified paper audit trail, and with that the touchscreens cost so much. Optical scan is a better value.

More: http://news-register.net/community/story/027202005_com02.asp

Can somebody here go to that meeting?

[Boredtodeath]

1. This man is clueless

The voter then gets to keep the paper ballot "to do whatever they want with it," explained Belmont County Director of Elections William Shubat.

There is simply no truth to this statement. Federal law requires that all ballots are kept on file for 22 months.

And we wonder why the election system in this country is so flawed - with elections officials like this........

[sasquatch]

2. I'll see if I can make it there

:hi:

[MelissaB]

3. That would be wonderful!

Please keep us posted.

[demodonkey]

4. Belmont-where Recount ballots were presorted & the ultrasnarky BOE Chair

ran the recount like it was session at a Marine Boot Camp. As BOE Chair, Madame Snarky ran everything over the heads of both of Shubat and his deputy. Snarky is the wife of some local judge, and was yelling at the observers, snapping at the recount teams, told the recount observers to leave their coats (and purses!) on the floor out in the hall. Made everyone take off their Recount Observer ID Buttons from the Green Party (too "political" for her) yet every other word out of her mouth was about "PRESIDENT Bush" as opposed to just "Kerry".

Ballots for the "random" 3% Recount were waiting on the tables, in ballot cases, sealed with numbered seals supposedly since Election Night or at least since Certification, but when opened the ballots were all sitting in there in PERFECT ORDER OF WHO WAS VOTED FOR PRESIDENT. And NO hanging chads or even a rough punch hole in ANY ballot.

Pre-sorted? Pre-cleaned? Pre-punched??

The minute the 3% hand-count and the machine count matched Madame Snarky suddenly did a 180, relaxed, and became a big pussycat. Her attitude was such a big change it was suspicious.

Shubat is Dem... seemed like a nice guy, but probably a DINO or at least an ultra-"centrist" Dem who needs to get along with Madame Snarky for political reasons.

If somebody CAN go to this meeting (and Madame Snarky lets you in) it would probably be a good idea to do so. It's only about a mile or so from I-70 (where I-470 Bypass crosses the Ohio River). Bank One bldg is the tallest building in Bellaire.

Rigas Restaurant (same block) has good pie.

[NationalEnquirer]

5. This is so disheartening..

to see the utter ignorance of people who are supposed to know better..