Groups demand voting machines with paper trail

JACKSON TWP. - Some flew cross-country on jets. Others drove several miles in cars. A few simply walked a couple hundred yards across campus.

Roughly 50 people, many strangers to each other, met on common ground for a common cause Thursday morning. They joined on a patch of grass on the edge of a parking lot outside the conference center at Kent State University Stark Campus.

They want electronic voting machines that can produce a paper trail, a hard copy record of votes.

"This is not a Democratic or Republican issue," said Mark Floegel, of TrueMajority.org, a national Internet activist group. "This is an American issue."

TrueMajority, based in Vermont and founded by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry Ice Cream fame, and the Ruckus Society, of Oakland, Calif., put the demonstration together.

Inside the conference center, shareholders of Diebold met for an annual meeting. Outside, demonstrators sent them a message.

They spoke with three red helium-filled balloons, inscribed with peace signs, which supported a fishing net with a sign "Diebold Devours Democracy" plastered on it. They shouted with "Computer Ate My Vote" T-shirts. They yelled with a 6-foot-tall mock-up of a Diebold voting machine, which "malfunctioned" and spewed smoke. They criticized the White House using tongue-in-cheek banners and pamphlets aimed at President Bush.

Protesters were activists like John Sellers, executive director of the Ruckus Society, which provided the props. And activist Bev Harris, who flew into Cleveland early Thursday after testifying Wednesday in California, where officials may decertify Diebold machines.

They also were nearly a dozen Kent State Stark students, who came on a short field trip of sorts. Bruce Frieden, professor of their sociology class on bureaucratic organization, said the timing of the protest couldn't have been better for his students to observe.

"We're doing a unit on organizational change," he said.

They also were people like Leonard Klein of Norton in Summit County, a retired construction worker. He'd never participated in a protest in his life. But he said he's concerned the election could be rigged, unless there's a paper trail.

"It can happen," he said.

Nineteen-year-old Oberlin College sophomore Emily Doubilet is part of a national movement called League of Independent voters. She heads the Oberlin chapter, which she said is called the League of Pissed Off Voters. She skipped class to attend.

"It's a little more important for the day," she said. "We can catch up on class."

The core of the group demonstrated for about two hours. Before the shareholders' meeting began, some protesters complained about being shoved aside to the grass and the edge of the parking lot by university officials.

A few minutes later, three protesters were invited into the building to meet with Diebold CEO and Chairman Walden O'Dell for five minutes before the shareholders' meeting.

"You should be the guy who sets the standard," Jeff Seemann told O'Dell, urging him to add some sort of paper trail to the machines Ohio plans to buy from the company.

Seemann, a Democrat who is running for the U.S. House 16th District seat against incumbent Ralph Regula, said such a trail is the only thing that will ensure security.

"Our equipment is very accurate, very honest," O'Dell said.

The company was not asked to provide machines with paper trails when it presented its products to Ohio elections officials. He said Diebold, which also makes ATM machines, would gladly add such a feature, if that's what buyers want.

"We're only able to sell what they want to buy," O'Dell said.