Enquirer:
Gov. Ted Strickland and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner asked the Ohio congressional delegation this week for help securing federal funds.
Strickland urged the delegation in a letter to support the bill to continue the State Children's Health Insurance Program, calling an increase in funding for children's health coverage a "top federal priority" for his administration.
He said that without adequate federal funding, Ohio's program to provide health care for children will have shortfalls of $6.8 million next year and $98.6 million in 2009.
Brunner, meanwhile, asked Sens. Voinovich and Brown to help the state avoid losing $300 million in federal money for elections, which the Senate Appropriations Committee stripped from its version of a spending bill. The House version includes the funds, and Brunner asked Ohio's senators to do what they can to restore the money in the Senate bill.....
Seeing as how the Republicans in the House and the Senate from Ohio appear to be doing nothing, Ohioans can expect little if any help from them.
With eyes on securing honest elections in Ohio, some changes are being made. Dispatch:
Franklin County spent $14 million for its fleet of high-tech, touch-screen voting machines. Now, officials plan to spend another $1 million for the latest in accurate and secure equipment:
Paper ballots.....
......A recent state directive bans provisional voting on electronic machines and requires paper ballots.
Provisional votes, usually cast when voters don't have valid identification or have moved and not updated their address, are increasingly being challenged in tight races. They became an issue in Ohio's 2004 presidential contest and, last year, in the race for Ohio's 15th Congressional District.
In her directive, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner orders provisional ballots to be cast on paper and sealed in an envelope. That envelope, bearing a name and address, is discarded once the voter is verified -- forever protecting the anonymity of the ballot. With electronic machines, the voter's identification code remains on a ballot printout......
Thank you, Jennifer Brunner!!!!!
However, speaking in opposition was Republican Matthew Damschroder, director of the Board of Elections.
.....Franklin County already had solid privacy precautions, Damschroder said. "It's very unfortunate that, after spending $14 million on electronic voting machines, we've got to spend another $1 million to accommodate paper.
"We're looking at about $1 million in an agency with a total annual budget of $6 million," he said.....
Damschroder, it should be noted, was once suspended for taking money for the Ohio GOP from Diebold, the electronic voting machine company. (LINK)