[From The Columbus Dispatch]
May 26, 2008
BY ALAN JOHNSON
Photo: SHARI LEWISDISPATCH
A signature made with this electronic pen can be verified against voter rolls.
Technology finally has caught up with the decades-old pen-and-paper process used to gather signatures of registered voters to place issues on the ballot.
A new high-tech system is being pioneered locally by the Ohio Petition Co., a Columbus business that sprang up after a strip-club issue dismally failed to qualify for the November ballot. Backers of the petition drive spent $1.5 million, but only 29 percent of the signatures were valid, dooming the effort.
Several other issues have suffered the same fate in recent years.
The new system uses a “digital pen” that captures signatures electronically on special paper. It transmits them to a BlackBerry, which, in turn, sends the information to a computer, where the signatures and accompanying details are checked visually against a statewide voter-registration database maintained by county boards of elections.
Ian James, a veteran Democratic political operative, saw a chance to fill the vacuum when the strip-club petition drive crashed.
“Our program is not the cheapest out there,” James said. “But if you want cheap, you’ll get failure.”
“We guarantee that we will get your issue on the ballot,” he said. If that doesn’t happen, Ohio Petition will pay a “significant monetary penalty,” depending on the size of the contract.
The first challenge for the new system is a big one: gathering 120,583 valid signatures on a petition to place a mandatory sick-leave issue on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Supporters of the Ohio Healthy Families Act, a union-led coalition, submitted enough signatures to send the issue to the General Assembly earlier this year.
The proposal would require all businesses with 25 or more employees to provide full-time workers with at least seven paid sick days per year. Part-time workers would receive a prorated amount of sick time.
Legislative leaders, who generally oppose the proposal, dragged their feet and held only one hearing on it.
When the 120-day waiting period required by law expired May 9, the coalition began gathering more signatures. Tens of thousands are in hand, said coalition spokesman Dale Butland.
Hiring James’ company was a good investment, Butland said. “The new technology and improvements make the process a lot cleaner and a lot more efficient.”
The system is adapted from PenVote, a Columbus startup company that is promoting use of the technology to replace voting machines. It uses an electronic pen about the size of a fat fountain pen. When someone writes on the paper, a miniature camera in the pen reads the handwriting in relation to tiny dots imprinted on the paper. It then transmits a signal to reproduce the handwriting on a computer screen. The pens cost about $250 each.
PenVote co-founder Chris Wilson, former information-technology director for the Franklin County Board of Elections, said he’s happy to have the technology used for the petition drive to encourage familiarity with it.
He hopes it will be adopted someday as a voting system for easy tabulation and verification.
Dispatch reporter Mark Niquette contributed to this story.
