Solano, Diebold end pact

Supervisors OK a deal paying the company $415,000 for using its electronic voting machines in March.

By Jason Massad for the Vacaville Reporter   26 August 2004

Solano County's troubled relationship with Diebold Election Systems Inc., the manufacturer of a much-maligned electronic voting machine, is officially over.

The county's attorneys made a deal last week to pay the manufacturer $415,000 to terminate a multimillion-dollar contract that the county signed in 2002, according to officials.

Solano County supervisors decided in May to split with the company after Secretary of State Kevin Shelley decertified the AccuVote-TSx voting machine in April, calling the company "reprehensible" and saying that "they broke the law."

Solano's voters used the touch-screen machines one time, in the March presidential primary election. Ironically, surveys concluded that 86 percent of the county's voters "liked (them) better than punch-card voting."

Supervisor Barbara Kondylis said Tuesday that "none of us were aware of the potential for problems" when the Diebold contract was signed. "I wish I hadn't made the mistake," she added.

Company representatives for Diebold could not be reached for comment.

The $415,000 settlement

is the result of a negotiation between the county and Diebold for the cost of the March election, said Wendy Getty, assistant county counsel.

Last October's recall election, which was the county's final use of the punch-card system, cost about $410,000, not including overtime for personnel and other special expenditures, according to county records.

Diebold representatives had said the county could be sued for the entire amount of its $4 million contract. Up until the settlement, Solano officials had made no payments to Diebold.

However, negotiations with the company's attorneys ended up being workable, Getty said.

Local officials agreed that the county owed Diebold for the cost of using the machines in one election, even though the AccuVote-TSx machines were only conditionally certified for use by the state and were not federally approved.

"We started far apart," Getty said.

Solano County was one of four counties which had the AccuVote TSx voting machines banned for use in the November presidential election. San Diego, San Joaquin and Kern counties also were affected by Shelley's April decision.

Despite offers from Diebold to provide an optical scan system, however, Solano officials quickly moved to sever the county's relationship with the company.

They then agreed to a $3.2 million deal with Nebraska-based Election Systems and Software, a main competitor of Diebold. The county's voters will use paper ballots in November, marking their choice in ovals that will be read by optical scanners. The county is now in the process of setting up those machines for use, say officials.