Diebold s out of competition 
  

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun   Dec 22, 2005

DURHAM One of the two companies that's vying to sell Durham County a new set of voting machines has ped out of the competition here and everywhere else in the state, saying it can't comply with the regulations North Carolina recently imposed on the systems.

Officials with Diebold Election Systems announced their decision to the state Board of Elections on Wednesday, and the board passed the word along to election managers in Durham and other parts of the state Thursday afternoon.

Diebold's decision likely means that Durham County officials will buy new voting machines from Election Systems and Software, the company that built the county's current system.

"Well, it certainly makes my board's decision on Tuesday much easier when now they have to decide between one," county Elections Director Mike Ashe quipped, noting that the Durham Board of Elections was supposed to pick one of the vendors as soon as the Christmas holiday was over.

An e-mail the state board relayed to Ashe and other county election managers didn't include a copy of the letter Diebold officials sent explaining why they decided to out.

However, a lawyer for the company told The Associated Press that it can't comply with the state's demand for copies of the source code of all the software used in its systems.

Diebold is worried it could be charged with a felony under the law if state officials later determine the company didn't share its software, and says it doesn't have permission to provide code owned by third parties like Microsoft. Diebold's machines use the Windows CE embedded operating system.

The company's pullout prompted the N.C. Association of County Commissioners the lobbying group for the state's 100 county governments to ask Gov. Mike Easley to call a special session of the General Assembly to revise the regulations passed in August.

The association is targeting the section of the law that forced the state Board of Elections to decertify all existing voting systems and make counties do business only with companies willing to meet a set of demands that went beyond those required by federal law, said Paul Meyer, the group's assistant general counsel.

Among other things, the law insists that all voting systems general a paper record of every ballot, that manufacturers post a bond large enough to cover the cost of a new election if their machines fail, and that systems sort the votes of absentee and early voters into their home precincts.

Meyer and other officials with the Association of County Commissioners say the state's regulations are forcing many counties to scrap systems, some of them still new, that meet federal requirements passed in response to the disputed presidential election in 2000.

The association also isn't happy with the idea that counties might be able to buy from only one vendor, ES&S. It believes the company can't deliver all the machines in time for county elections boards to train on them and be ready for the May primary, and says a few counties are making plans to use and hand-count paper ballots.

"We're not asking for a repeal of [everything that's] in that bill, but a repeal of the sections that have put pressure on the counties," Meyer said.

But the chief sponsor of the "Public Confidence in Elections" law, state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange, said that she thinks what the association really wants is a postponement of the May primary.

"Their concern is they can't get the primary done in time, and therefore they want to push that date up," she said, recounting her own conversations with Meyer, the association's point man on the balloting issue.

Kinnaird insisted that most of the problems officials are running into stem from federal law, not the regulations the state passed in August. Among other things, the federal government required officials to make sure that blind voters are able to cast ballots in secret, without the need for a sighted helper.

That's forced Durham and other counties to consider buying electronic touchpad systems that have a harder time meeting the state's demand for a paper trail.

The senator conceded that General Assembly's insistence that manufacturers post bonds probably convinced smaller companies not to bid for certification, thus leaving the field to Diebold and ES&S.

Meanwhile, Ashe said he's confident that Durham can be ready for the May primary.

"Am I worried? No," he said. "However, it is going to be a challenging few months. There's a lot that has to be done in a very short period of time."