County hits snags on voting machines
Series of problems followed the signing of deal with Election Systems & Software.
 By Jason Thomas Indianapolis Star
September 27, 2004
 

Marion County election officials have had a rocky relationship with Election Systems & Software since signing an $11.1 million contract with the firm for equipment that includes touch-screen voting machines for disabled voters.

Then-Marion County Clerk Sarah Taylor signed the contract with Nebraska-based ES&S in late 2002, and it's been a series of headaches since.

Last fall, several thousand absentee ballots had to be hand-counted over two days because ES&S had not obtained election-use certification for software on a central counting machine.

"I got a black eye because the results were pending," said Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler. "We sent the (tabulator) back and just said forget it.

"It was a mess."

In April, Election Board members learned that ES&S software used in the optical-scan machines in November had not been fully certified by the Indiana Election Commission.

Another problem surfaced when officials discovered ES&S had installed uncertified software on the touch-screen machines. The company replaced the software, but that software was incompatible with the software that compiles the results.

"Even though, currently, the (touch-screen machines) we have sitting in a warehouse have certified software on them, we can't use them because we can't use the tabulation software with them," Sadler said.

ES&S announced Wednesday that it had received certification from the Indiana Election Commission, but the action comes too late for the November election, according to Sadler.

All voters will use the optical-scan equipment.

The problems last fall even extended to the design of the ballots. The Democratic Party sued to have the ballots organized by party rather than by office.

Sadler said she was told by ES&S that the company could not have ballots printed in time for the general election. However, she said that ES&S later told her that ballots by party could be printed.

That prompted Sadler to write a letter to ES&S, stating that the company is contractually obliged to pay more than $101,000 in legal fees.

ES&S spokeswoman Jill Friedman said the company disputes the claim.

"ES&S' position is that we strongly disagree with the claim," Friedman said.

The complications, coupled with the multimillion-dollar investment, have taken their toll.

"The fact that we've spent all this money and (the touch-screen machines) are unusable is very frustrating," Sadler said.