County to buy new voting machines from California firm

JON GAMBRELL
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD   03 May 2005

Whatcom County is negotiating with Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. to supply new election machines for its switch from punch card ballots to an all vote-by-mail system this year.

In the negotiations, confirmed today by Whatcom County Auditor Shirley Forslof, county would purchase three optical scan ballot counting machines, as well as three touch screen voting devices for the disabled.

?We feel like they have an established technology and a good support system,? Forslof said. ?They have good hardware audit trails and software audit trails.?

The county fielded two bids from out-of-state companies to supply voting machines one from California-based Sequoia and the other from Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas.

Sequoia?s system, described by Forslof as ?basically the same thing we have now,? counts the fill-in-the-bubble ballots used in vote-by-mail faster than Hart InterCivic. And while Hart InterCivic?s machines save an electronic copy of the ballot, Sequoia?s system depends solely on the paper copy.

For more information on the county?s choice, as well as concerns some have raised over Sequoia voting products, see Wednesday?s edition of The Bellingham Herald.

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