News

Diebold's touchscreen voting system used in Ohio elections

February 10, 2003

NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- Voters in Hamilton County, Ohio used AccuVote-TS touchscreen voting systems proivded by Diebold Election Systems, a subsidiary of Diebold, Incorporated (NYSE: DBD), to cast their ballots in a recent election held in the suburbs of Norwood and Saint Bernard, located just outside of Cincinnati.

Ninety of Diebold's touchscreen systems were used at 27 polling locations.

Hamilton County previously used a punch card voting system. According to local officials quoted in a news release, voters adapted to the new technology very quickly.

"We had a lot of positive feedback from our voters and poll workers about Diebold's new touchscreen voting system," said Julia Stautberg, director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, in the release. "We were very pleased with the support and personnel provided by Diebold in coordination with our staff on election day."

Diebold's Thomas Swidarski said in the release, "All precincts opened on schedule, and poll workers found Diebold's pre-election training simple and easy to understand. Many poll workers even volunteered to demonstrate the system to voters entering the precinct."

Swidarski, Diebold's vice president of Strategic Development & Global Marketing, also oversees Diebold Election Systems.

Once the Hamilton election polls closed, results from each voting system were sent to a regional collection center and then transported to the Hamilton County Board of Elections, where the results were tabulated in about 10 minutes. Absentee ballots were tabulated immediately after the polls closed, and the combined results were available instantly, as Diebold's election management software supports the touchscreen system and the optical scan absentee ballot system in one application.

The county elected to manually transport results from each precinct instead of utilizing the system's capability to transmit results over the standard telephone network via modem, which allows for even faster tabulation of results.

According to the release, the AccuVote-TS system has a review screen that allows voters to amend and verify all selections prior to casting their ballot. Once a ballot is cast, the data is encrypted and redundantly stored within the voting system, providing increased security.

AccuVote eliminates the problem of over-voting, as the system does not permit a person to vote for more than the designated number of selections within a particular race.

The system also has the capability of enlarging the ballot font size for voters with limited vision, along with a voice-guidance capability that verbally recites the entire ballot to blind or visually impaired voters. Blind voters listen to the ballot information using headphones, and control navigation of the ballot with a standard telephone- style keypad.