Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2003 | 9:06 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Secretary of State Dean Heller plans to announce Wednesday which touch-screen voting machines Nevada will buy to replace its punch-card units for the 2004 election.
The competition boils down to Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., versus Diebold Election Systems of North Canton, Ohio, for the contract that could yield up to $8 million for the winner.
Heller wants the same machines statewide and intends to put one in every polling place to accommodate 150 to 175 voters. Clark County now uses the Sequoia system and Heller has been leaning toward that company.
There are about 4,500 voting machines statewide with 3,000 of them in Clark County. Washoe County uses the optical scanning units of Diebold in which a voter marks his ballot and it is counted electronically.
Many of the county clerks in rural Nevada say they should be the ones to decide what company they will use for their voting machines. But Heller says he has the authority to make the decision for a uniform system statewide.
Scores of e-mails have been pouring into Heller's office, and the majority urge him to steer clear of Diebold, Heller said.
The state Gaming Control Board, at the request of Heller, tested both machines for security. He declined to reveal the results Monday but said they will be disclosed on Wednesday.
Heller already has $5 million in federal funds to make the purchases. Another $5.7 million has been appropriated by Congress but has not been distributed yet. Heller said the planned purchases could total $6 million to $8 million.
Heller said both companies have agreed they would be willing to sign a financing deal to provide the machines, pending the receipt of the added $5.7 million.
The touch-screen voting machines do not provide a paper trail for a recount of each vote. The only record is a device in the back of the machine that counts the votes as they are cast. When voting is completed, the machine is opened and votes are tabulated. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., claimed that federal law already requires the electronic voting machine to produce a duplicate paper ballot. Ensign said he submitted an amendment to the Voting Rights Act that "each voting system must have a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system."
But Heller said Ensign's amendment never made it through the House-Senate Conference Committee. The federal legislation, he said, requires only a "verified page," which gives the totals from the machine.
There are units that can be added to the electronic voting machines that could produce a paper ballot but the cost would be $500 or more for each unit. Heller said he is not going to require these additional units in the electronic voting systems.
There have been reports in the national media questioning the security of the Diebold machine against manipulation. Diebold has hired the politically powerful law firm of Jones Vargas to represent it in the competition. Heller said Sequoia has not employed a lobbyist. However, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, a member of the Jones Vargas firm, wrote Heller on Nov. 12 saying a constituent supplied him with information that indicated there "are many difficulties with touch-screen voting."
Raggio enclosed an article from The Independent, a British newspaper, that reviewed an election in Georgia this year in which Diebold machines froze up, causing long delays as they were repaired. Studies found the Georgia touch screens were poorly programmed and full of security holes.
Diebold officials maintain their machines are accurate and reliable.
archive
