Diebold among winning bidders for N.C. voting equipment sales

GARY D. ROBERTSON   Associated Press   01 December 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. - The State Board of Elections approved three companies Thursday to sell voting machines to all 100 counties in time for next year's elections, including a firm that complained earlier it couldn't comply with all the rules for computer software.

Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems all met minimum technical and administrative standards to sell in North Carolina, as determined by a panel of computer and election experts.

The standards were developed under a state law approved this year after more than 4,400 electronic ballots were lost in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months.

Although Sequoia must wait for approval from a special procurement board due to a clerical delay, all three will be allowed to sell both optical ballot scanning and electronic recording machines to county election boards, which administer elections in North Carolina.

Now state and county election officials must vendors, choose machines, have them delivered and train precinct workers on the new units before early primary voting begins in April.

That means counties need to meet a Jan. 20 deadline to contract with a vendor. The machines will be demonstrated at four locations statewide the week of Dec. 12.

"For this timetable to work, the gods are going to have absolutely on you and having everything in place," state elections board chairman Larry Leake said. He didn't rule out recommending the election be delayed or counties resort to paper ballots if counties and the vendors can't get the machines ready in time for the May 2 primary.

"Everyone needs to cross their fingers," he said.

Diebold argued in court earlier this week it couldn't meet North Carolina's requirements to provide computer source code for its equipment for technical election experts to review in case of a mishap. A judge threw out Diebold's request to be shielded from criminal prosecution if it refuses to disclose software that is owned by Microsoft Corp. or other third parties.

The new state law requires the software code be stored so it can be examined quickly during an emergency.

Keith Long, who is advising the elections board with the voting equipment changes, said after talking this week with the three winning bidders that "none of them have the source code for all of their software they use."

Computer experts still will be able to review any changes the machine manufacturer has made to the outside software to check if those revisions may have caused the problem, Long said.

Diebold Election, based in Allen, Texas, threatened to pull out of the bidding because of its courtroom defeat this week. It decided to stay involved but still has questions, spokesman Brian Bear said. The company now provides voting machines to about 20 North Carolina counties.

Diebold's critics argued Thursday that the company's track record in other states should disqualify it from selling in North Carolina. Diebold machines were blamed for voting disruptions in a California primary election last year. And that state has refused to certify some machines because of their malfunction rate.

"You are really asking for trouble," said Joyce McCloy of Winston-Salem with the North Carolina Coalition for Verified Voting. "It's going to destroy the confidence of the citizens of the state."

The General Assembly approved more than $36 million to help counties buy new voting equipment and software, but it won't cover all the expenses.

Long said the price tag for the optical scanning machines approved Thursday range from $4,500 to $5,500 each, while electronic recording machines are from $2,900 to $3,800. Counties that buy electronic machines will spend more because more units are required at each precinct.