County will miss voting-machine deadline
By Brian Seals     Santa Cruz SEntinel    19 December 2005

Santa Cruz County will not meet a Jan. 1 deadline requiring disabled access voting systems to be in place at polling sites.

The federal 2002 Help America Vote Act requires systems that allow the disabled to vote without assistance.

The problem is, only a few companies manufacture voting machines, leaving counties around the state and nation in the same situation as Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz County negotiated with Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. for a contract on a blended voting system that would include one electronic touch-screen voting machine with a paper trail in each polling place along with traditional mark-a-vote style ballots somewhat similar to what the county has used in the past.

But the approximately $2 million contract has been put on hold because Sequoia's machines were conditionally, but not fully, certified to be used in elections by the Secretary of State's office.

"We're really waiting for them to be certified before we sign on the dotted line," County Clerk Gail Pellerin said.

The system wasn't fully certified in California because it didn't have the capacity to report crossover votes in primary elections in the June primary.

 
Pellerin said she was confident the machines would be in place by next June's primary election.

The company is testing a final component and hopes to reapply to the state in January, said Seqouia Voting Systems spokeswoman Michelle Shafer.

It remains unclear what sanctions, if any, states would face for failure to comply timely.

Eric Holland, spokesman with the U.S. Department of Justice, would not comment on and specific states' progress.

"We're evaluating the status of the states as part of our enforcement responsibilities," Holland said. "When the deadline approaches we'll see if any actions are needed."

At a November summit in Sacramento of elections officials from around the county, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said deadlines were less important than ensuring new voting systems are accurate and can garner the trust of the voting public.

"In my opinion, the deadlines are actually secondary ? because working on election reform is a long-term commitment and we must not take shortcuts simply to meet deadlines at the expense of integrity, accuracy and voter confidence," McPherson said.