Three companies sign contracts to sell machines
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Three makers of electronic voting machines have signed contracts with the state to replace punch-card and lever voting devices that must be scrapped under a new law requiring d equipment.

Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems and Software and Maximus/Hart Intercivic/DFM Associates will provide replacements for counties that still use punch card and lever devices.

The state Controlling Board, a legislative panel that oversees many state contracts, must approve the deals.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said a fourth supplier, Sequoia Voting Systems, could not reach contract terms with his office.

The Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress after the problem-plagued Florida vote in the 2000 election, requires states to replace punch-vote and lever systems with electronic machines or scanners that read marks voters make on paper ballots.

The systems were to be installed by the Nov. 2, 2003 election, but security concerns about the machines and slower-than-expected federal funding led Blackwell to ask for an extension. He hopes to have about two-thirds of Ohio's 88 counties equipped with the electronic machines or optical scanners by this Nov. 2, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

The contracts calls for the following prices of each machine: Diebold Election Systems AccuVote-TS, $2,964; ES&S iVotronic, $2,896, and Maximus/Hart Intercivic/DFM Associates eSlate 3000, $2,997. Optical scan machine prices are: Diebold Elections Systems AccuVote-OS, $4,127 and ES&S Model 100, $5,499.

Blackwell estimated that at least three electronic voting devices or one optical scan device would be needed at each of the state's 11,434 precincts.