Voting-machine company settles suit with state
Wire Report
March 20, 2009
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| Vote of approval: San Francisco's Sequoia Voting System has received another waiver from Secretary of State Debra Bowen. (Examiner file photo) |
A voting-machine manufacturer has agreed to pay California $3.2 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it sold unauthorized machines to San Francisco and four other counties.
San Francisco had previously settled a lawsuit with the same company for $3.5 million.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who oversees elections, sued Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software Inc. in November 2007. She alleged the company sold 972 machines that the state had not tested and certified.
ES&S sold the AutoMark A200 machines to San Francisco and Colusa, Marin, Merced and Solano counties, according to Bowen, who announced the settlement Thursday.
The company claimed the machines made only minor changes from an earlier, certified model.
In a statement, ES&S said the A200 had been approved for federal use and was “inadvertently deployed” in California. The machines have since been authorized.
The same company was involved in a lawsuit that The City filed, also in November 2007.
In that case, San Francisco sued ES&S for costs it incurred in meeting new state certification requirements for the company’s AutoMARK ballot marking devices.
Problems with the ES&S machines resulted in prolonged hand counts of votes in the Nov. 6 election. Elections officials were not able to certify the results until Dec. 7.
San Francisco paid $3.79 million for more than 500 of the voting machines in 2006, according to the City Attorney’s Office.
Under an agreement, ES&S paid $3.5 million in return for the devices, and the lawsuit was dismissed.
A short time later, the Board of Supervisors authorized a new four-year, $12.65 million contract with Sequoia Voting Systems, which are the machines still being used for elections.
Another waiver issued for voting system
New voting equipment The City is using under a $12.6 million, four-year contract has yet to be fully certified by the state, which nonetheless gave San Francisco a waiver to use the system again in May.
San Francisco is the only municipality in California that uses ranked-choice voting, so the software it is using, from Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, has been modified.
San Francisco previously used machines from Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, which never received certification, only waivers. It was later determined that the most recent version of the equipment was unauthorized.
With the Sequoia equipment, Secretary of State Debra Bowen issued a one-time waiver last year that allowed San Francisco to use the modified version of the software for the November election.
However, the Secretary of State’s Office issued another one-time waiver March 5 allowing The City to use the modified software in May.
Although there are no local races on the spring ballot, voters will use the Sequoia system, according to Elections Department Director John Arntz.
“We’re confident that the system is counting votes accurately,” he said.
— John Upton
