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By all means, ease absentee balloting carefully
Published on Thursday, Oct 04, 2007
In Akron's Ward 4, incumbent City Council member Renee Greene has won another squeaker of a Democratic primary, her victory confirmed in a recount Tuesday. She won the nomination by three votes out of more than 1,500 counted.
As Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's former secretary of state, might say, that's within the margin of litigation. City leaders did sue. They argued that absentee ballots that arrived late at the elections board due to Postal Service error should be counted.
They lost, Common Pleas Judge Tom Teodosio ruling that Mayor Don Plusquellic and Council President Marco Sommerville lacked legal standing. In all, 200 absentee ballots were left uncounted. In Ward 4, there were 17 such ballots, more than enough to affect the outcome of the primary.
Next year, Ohio is once again expected to be ground zero in the presidential election. Because the state has adopted ''no-fault'' absentee voting, no longer requiring applicants to give a reason for voting early, the number of absentee ballots is expected to jump considerably.
In Summit County alone, about 34,000 voted absentee in the 2004 presidential election, before ''no fault'' was adopted. Summit County election officials now estimate that between 50,000 and 60,000 will vote absentee in the fall of 2008.
With numbers like that in a single county, and a tight race for Ohio's 20 electoral votes forecast, an entire presidential election could be cast into doubt. Resolving issues surrounding absentee voting before next year may not be the only concern when it comes to getting an accurate count in November 2008, but it could be the most important.
Stephen Dyer, a Democratic state representative from Green, has moved quickly to craft a bill that would remedy situations like the one that happened on Sept. 11 in Summit County. State law is clear: Except for overseas ballots, absentee ballots must be received at elections boards before voting has ended. Postmarks are irrelevant.
Dyer's bill would open up a 10-day period after Election Day for absentee ballots to come in, the same as allowed for overseas ballots. Trouble is, his bill would allow ballots without postmarks to be counted, too, an argument also advanced by Plusquellic and Sommerville in their lawsuit. (In Dyer's bill, absentee ballots with postmarks would have to be marked before Election Day or, if sent on Election Day, received the same day.)
Dyer can expect rough sledding in the legislature about counting late absentee ballots without postmarks, as well as objections from Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's new secretary of state.
Under current Ohio law, overseas military ballots that arrive within a 10-day window are counted if they lack a postmark, a concession to the harsh conditions of military life. Civilian overseas ballots need a postmark no later than the date of the election to be included in the official tally.
Clearly, the possibility is remote that an organization that can't even deliver 200 absentee ballots in time in a low-turnout county primary could conspire to throw an entire statewide election.
Still, the inclusion in the official count of nonpostmarked ballots received during a 10-day period after Election Day from local voters (who easily could make themselves aware of initial results) opens a door to potential fraud through the corruption of individual employees, either at election boards or post offices.
Despite hysteria from the right about voter fraud, very few instances have cropped up in Ohio. Sure, phony voter registrations have been turned in by organizers who are paid per new voter. That hasn't translated into phony votes on Election Day.
Is is the low level of fraud reason to expand no-postmark absentee voting the way Dyer wants to? Given next year's high-stakes presidential election in Ohio, greater caution will probably prevail.
Brunner, meanwhile, is exploring other options.
Working with the Postal Service to better handle absentee ballots is one, and is included in the Dyer bill. Other states use envelopes that indicate high-priority handling. Another possibility is the use of drop-off boxes (no postage required) that would be emptied by elections board workers as soon as the polls close.
A further step wold involve the establishment of electronic voting stations around a county that would open well before Election Day. Such machines could easily be programmed to provide voters from around a county with the proper ballots.
Absentee voting starts 35 days before Election Day. The use of voting stations in a similar time frame would cut down the clumsy and time-consuming route for voting absentee: Mailing in an application, getting the right ballot sent back, then sending it back to the elections board in time to be counted. That creates plenty of chances for human error to occur.
The expansion of early voting can ease congestion at the polls and make it easier for busy citizens to cast ballots. But it must be done with care. Next year, a whole lot more than the Ward 4 in Akron will be up for grabs.
Hoffman is a Beacon Journal editorial writer. He can be reached at 330-996-3740 or e-mailed at slhoffman@thebeaconjournal.com
In Akron's Ward 4, incumbent City Council member Renee Greene has won another squeaker of a Democratic primary, her victory confirmed in a recount Tuesday. She won the nomination by three votes out of more than 1,500 counted.
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