Voting machine talks break down 
 
  
By Tom Long   The Citizen's Voice   15 March 2006

Jilted by the company it chose to upgrade its voting machines, Luzerne County now finds itself in a $3 million bind.

County Director of Elections Leonard Piazza III told the county elections board Tuesday morning that Electronic Systems and Software had apparently backed out on an agreement to provide 750 electronic voting machines, along with the training to use them.

Negotiations with Omaha, Neb.-based ES&S have ?broken down,? a frustrated Piazza told the board. The blow puts the county in serious danger of failing to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act, which is tied to a $3 million grant for buying new machines.

The company had consistently assured the county it would be able to provide machines, said Piazza, who was echoed by majority Commissioners Greg Skrepenak and Todd Vonderheid.

But last Wednesday, an ES&S representative abruptly said the company would be unable to provide training for the machines ? a requirement under HAVA. Two days later, a Pittsburgh-based printing company that contracts with ES&S told Piazza it couldn?t provide the machines, either, and recommended the county look elsewhere.

Talks stumbled when Piazza began to push the company for details about the cost of extended warranties and service arrangements, among other issues.

"When I asked about it, I was told we could talk about that later," Piazza said, adding he had a bad gut feeling there was an attempt to "keep information from our county."

"It wasn't something that I wanted to talk about later. It was something that I wanted to talk about now."

Touch-screen voting machines have often brought with them exponential increases in maintenance costs, said Pamela Smith, nationwide coordinator of the Verified Voting Foundation, which lobbies for voting methods with verifiable paper trails. Supply problems have not been common across the country, she said, but warranty issues have.

One county saw a 1,100 percent increase in election machine service costs during the four years following the switch to touch-screen machines, Smith said.

A representative from ES&S was reached immediately after the 10 a.m. meeting. He said he would check into the details of the county's situation and call back.

No one from the company called by press time, though additional messages were left.

Luzerne County never signed a contract with the company, but ES&S did enter into a legal agreement with the state to provide counties with machines, Piazza said. He believes they are required to provide the machines, and the county is presenting ES&S with demands it deliver machines and training, along with a long-term service arrangement.

A sales representative from the company, Todd Mullen, was asked to appear before the board, but he cancelled in a late-night e-mail to Solicitor Neil T. O'Donnell, the attorney said.

Piazza called other state-approved voting machine manufacturers, and most said they couldn't have equipment ready for the May elections, he said. It is still possible the county could buy machines from another vendor.

Meanwhile, the county is preparing a back-up plan to make sure residents can vote in the primaries -- on some type of machines. If ES&S doesn't change its plans during the next week, Piazza said the county will begin preparing the 840-pound lever machines for use.

Lever machines without independent verification are explicitly barred under HAVA, and the county would almost certainly lose the grant money, state and federal representatives said.

No exceptions or extensions are provided.

Passed in the aftermath of the messy 2000 presidential election in Florida, the 2002 Help America Vote Act ordered all counties to switch to electronic voting by this year's primary elections. The law has triggered its own series of debacles in the county and across the state.