Fun With Denominators (cont.): Ohio County Seeks Repeal of Voting Machine Ratios

[Image courtesy of lakecountyohio]

Math, it seems is everywhere in election administration these days – with the latest story to emerge involving an effort to repeal Ohio’s required machine-to-voter ratio. The News-Herald has more:

Lake County officials are optimistic a provision of state law that would force the county to purchase 54 additional voting machines this year will be removed as part of the state’s budget bill.

A state law enacted in 2006 would require each county starting in 2013 to have one voting machine per 175 registered voters.

The county has 152,878 registered voters and 864 electronic voting machines, so 54 additional machines would need to be purchased at a cost ranging from $100,000 to $200,000 — depending on if the equipment was new or used.

Commissioner Daniel P. Troy said during a commissioners meeting Tuesday that a repeal of that ratio was included in the version of the state budget bill passed last week by the Ohio Senate.

The measure is now in a conference committee involving Ohio House of Representatives and Ohio Senate members to hammer out differences between what each chamber passed to deliver a final version of the state budget for Gov. John Kasich to sign before July 1.

“Every indication is that should stay in the bill; (Ohio) Secretary of State (Jon) Husted is in favor of that language,” Troy said.

The County’s position isn’t that more than 175 voters can move through a single machine on a given day; rather, it’s that voting patterns have changed as voters have had more alternatives to the polling place:

[S]ince 2006, when the law was enacted, Lake County has experienced an explosion of early voting, a longer voting process, in-person voting, no-fault absentee voting.

The original state law was predicated on a desire for voting capacity at the polling place; in a system where the vast majority of voters are casting ballots in person on Election Day, a maximum voter-to-machine ratio made sense (especially after the long lines that plagued some Ohio counties in 2004). But today, that desire to maximize Election Day capacity doesn’t fit an electorate that’s casting ballots in different forms at different times at different places. Consequently, that excess capacity can cost counties funds that they cannot afford to spare.

It’s undeniable that one solution to the long voting lines that drew attention in 2012 is a better understanding of election capacity. But it’s also true that our understanding of capacity has to expand beyond the Election Day polling place if the field is to meet voters’ needs without unnecessarily emptying taxpayers’ pockets – especially since many residents in a given jurisdiction are both.

Here’s hoping Lake County’s lack of enthusiasm for statutory voters-to-machine ratios is matched by its enthusiasm to make up that capacity in other areas.