Brunner: Didn't want to use 'tea leaves'

Jon Craig reports from Columbus

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said Wednesday that Clermont County, and other counties, did not order enough ballots.

But she said she could not fault individual county Boards of Elections because there was record primary turnout and high rates of crossover voting by Republicans and independents.

Brunner's staff has begun to call counties to find out how many crossover voters there were and how many 10x forms were filled out by pollworkers if someone switches parties within two years.

"Once we start to gather the figures of what rate of crossover was, then we can start to dig into . . .what some of the motivations were."

Brunner said it would have been wrong, and partisan of her, to direct counties to order extra Democratic primary ballots at an additional cost based on public-opinion polls, commentators and news reports.

''That would have been a directive by tea leaves if I had done that,'' she said at a Wednesday news conference.

County boards already have to report to county commissioners on keeping costs reasonable, and are required to keep presidential ballots for 22 months -- so never want to produce an excessive number of blank ballots.

"There's a point where the secretary of state becomes more of a meddler than a help in the operation of the Boards of Elections,'' Brunner said.

"Were I to issue a directive like that based on reading the tea leaves, which is really all it would have been, I think it would have really been more irresponsible and would have been viewed as extremely partisan for whoever was in my position. . .That's why we have bipartisan Boards of Elections."

She does plan to ask counties for statistics and details on voters who signed forms attesting that they switched political parties.

Brunner said she still would like to see the entire state scanning paper ballots on Nov. 4.

"Paper ballots actually saved the day in a number of counties,'' she said. "Had we not had them, the problems would have been much more severe."

Butler County and 56 other counties use electronic touch-screen machines and Brunner is seeking legislative approval to spend more than $60 million to replace them with optical scanners.

"I think we've gone from being in intensive care to walking on crutches. And I think by November we're going to be walking normally on the street like anybody else, and (media and critics) will probably be looking at some other states."