New voting machines OK’d for rest of state

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 | 9:28 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A contract to buy more than 4,500 touch-screen voting machines to replace the state's old units for the 2004 election was approved by the state Board of Examiners on Tuesday.

The machines, from Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., will cost $9.2 million. The state will supply 5 percent of the total, and the federal government is putting up the rest of the money.

About $1.3 million will be spent for more equipment in Clark County, which already has the Sequoia system, said Deputy Secretary of State Renee Parker.

Sequoia will also retrofit some touch-screen machines in Clark County to create a "paper trail" so voters will be able to see their votes on a printout.

The printout will appear under a screen and the voter can scan it before pushing the button to record the vote. The voter will not get a copy of the printed material.

Some voters and other observers had been skeptical of the electronic units' ability to properly record votes.

The contract provides the machines to be delivered by March 31 in Washoe and the rural counties and for Sequoia to begin training county election officials, Parker said.

Some of the rural counties have punch cards, but Secretary of State Dean Heller, the state's chief election officer, has ruled those machines can no longer be used in elections because they are unreliable.

Washoe County has "optiscan" machines in which paper ballots are used. These ballots are then scanned electronically for the count.

Some of the rural counties favored the selection of Diebold Election Systems over Sequoia, but Heller said an inspection by the state Gaming Control Board showed that Sequoia was more secure against the possibility of election fraud.

In other action:

Gov. Kenny Guinn said more information should be gathered on the possibility that this problem exists in school buses being used to transport students in the state.

Doug Thunder, deputy superintendent for finance of the state Department of Education, said the Legislature did not provide any money for the new buses for the schools. Guinn said the approval of the $2.6 million for the forestry division is contingent on getting more information on the needs of the schools.

The emergency allocations must be approved by the Interim Finance Committee.