PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

ACTION ALERT---SAVE OUR VOTES STOP TAXPAYER RIP-OFF
by Allegheny Chapter of VotePA. Tuesday, Apr. 04, 2006 at 9:31 AM

Allegheny County is on track to make a terrible mistake. The county is currently negotiating a contract for some 2,800 used electronic voting systems. The systems are being purchased in order to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote act. This act requires that all states upgrade their elections systems to modern, secure, auditable and accessible equipment. The equipment that the county is seeking to purchase does not meet these standards.

ACTION ALERT---SAVE OUR VOTES STOP TAXPAYER RIP-OFF

Allegheny County is on track to make a terrible mistake. The county is currently negotiating a contract for some 2,800 used electronic voting systems. The systems are being purchased in order to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote act. This act requires that all states upgrade their elections systems to modern, secure, auditable and accessible equipment. The equipment that the county is seeking to purchase does not meet these standards.

The machines in question are being purchased for 11.8 million dollars. They are used systems that are coming from other states that no longer want them. Nevada found that the machines were too old to meet their present needs and could not be upgraded. Maryland found that the machines were costly and unreliable. Annual maintenance costs for machines like these were as much as ten times the amount previously planned. New Mexico ceased using all such machines after they failed during the 2004 presidential elections. As many as 6% of the votes cast on these machines by minority voters were lost. No other type system used in the state performed as poorly.

In order for any equipment to be used in this state it must be certified by both the Federal Government and the Secretary of State. Sequoia has yet to obtain a federal certification for these machines. As of last week they were only just filing the paperwork. The process itself can take upwards of several months. Despite the lack of a federal certification the systems were granted a state inspection last week. They failed miserably. During the state inspection it was found that:

* Votes could be changed with a simple text editor or word processor.
* Long-standing errors could cause votes to be erased before they were counted.
* Systems reported incorrect totals after only twelve votes had been cast.
* Promised security features had either been disabled or were nonfunctional.
* Company representatives were able to change the software during the inspection.

Two weeks ago the company's largest customer, Cook County Illinois held their first election using Sequoia Systems. This election was a miserable failure. Persistent errors with the company's other products may have cost thousands of votes. Many of the problems are still being investigated. County Officials have called for payments to be withheld from Sequoia pending an investigation.

This plan is a disaster waiting to happen. Even if the machines are purchased we may not be able to legally use them. We may also not be purchasing a sufficient number of machines to meet our legal needs. Even if the machines are certified they will not be ready until right before the election meaning that we will be forced to put them in place at the last minute with little or no training and preparation. This was one of the major factors in Cook County's elections’¡Ç problems.


Even if we do obtain some number of systems in time for May we will be forced to buy new machines with our taxpayers money. These are used machines with high operating costs. They are old systems and cannot easily be upgraded to meet our future needs. And they have not been certified as handicap accessible meaning that we will be in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the law.

This plan will not work.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

This plan was produced by County Executive Dan Onorato. He must be informed that the plan will fail and that it will carry a political cost when it does.

1) The current plan will fail:

* The vendor is unreliable and despite promises to achieve certification more than a year ago has still failed.
* The vendor has failed to fix persistent errors that may have erased votes in other states.
* The machines are used and have a history of failure in other states.
* The machines are not handicapped accessible putting us in violation of HAVA.
* The machines are not reliable and lack any reliable means of recounting or guaranteeing the votes.

2) Tell Onorato & County Council (particularly your own) that you do not want your tax dollars wasted on such a plan.
* We are spending 11.8 million dollars now and will have to spend millions in taxpayers dollars for replacement

3) Tell them to scrap the current contract and immediately petition the state for a delay.
* The Vendor has made promises and has failed to deliver.
* This means that we cannot trust them for this or future elections.
* We must rent machines or use the existing systems for May with a contract to purchase systems that are already certified and handicapped accessible by November.

County Councilman William Robinson has proposed that Council establish a citizen's advisory board to study and advise them on this issue. While this has potential, it will do no good unless the current plan is scrapped.




County Executive Dan Onorato may be reached at:
Phone: (412) 350-6500
Fax: (412) 350-6512
e-mail: executive@county.allegheny.pa.us




Contact County Council:
County Council's Website:
http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/council/members.asp

Map Of Council Districts:
http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/council/dist/coundis.asp

County Council's Main number is:
(412) 350-6490



The plan will be discussed at Council Meeting Tuesday, April 4 at 5:00 Gold Room 4th Floor 436 Grant Street.You may get on the schedule to speak in favor of it by calling the main number or going to Council's website.