Reply #5: Ohio: Elections board member peeved about missed vote

[MelissaB]

Elections board member peeved about missed vote

2005-06-09
By Nick Claussen
Athens NEWS Associate Editor


Athens County Board of Elections member Howard Stevens is upset at the Democratic members of the board for pushing through a vote on new voting machines for the county when he could not attend the meeting.

On May 17, the board was scheduled to decide on new voting machines for the county. This was to be the third vote on voting machines, because after the previous two votes Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell called on all Ohio counties to vote again.

In the discussions leading up to the vote on the machines, it was apparent that Republicans Stevens and Richard Mottl favored the electronic touch-screen voting machines from Diebold Election Systems, Inc., and Democrats Susan Gwinn and Bill Lavelle favored the optical-scan voting machines from Election Systems & Software.

If the vote had ended in a 2-2 tie, the decision would have been forwarded to Blackwell. Board members had previously said they believed Blackwell would select the Diebold machines for the county, just as he previously chose the Diebold machines after the last tie vote.

More: http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=20851