Elections officials study bids to provide new voting machines

By MARSHA SHULER    The Baton Rouge Advocate    10 August 2005
mshuler@theadvocate.com 

There were no surprises as state elections officials got a second set of proposals Tuesday from companies seeking to provide the state with nearly $50 million worth of new voting machines.

A contract should be awarded by month's end, state Elections Chief Angie LaPlace said. The winner would become the sole provider of the state's voting machines.

The competing firms are Accupoll, Advanced Voting Systems, Diebold, Election Systems and Software and Sequoia Voting Systems.

They are the same five companies that put in proposals the first time.

The state election office scrapped an earlier search after a committee reviewing proposals encountered difficulty comparing one with the other.

In addition, officials said some of the proposals were missing information the elections' agency sought about companies and their business dealings.

"It looks like everybody followed what they were asked for in pricing proposals so it will make it easy to compare," LaPlace said.

A review is under way to determine whether the companies submitted the company information requested, such as, lawsuits filed against them or their employees, audited financial statements and the like, LaPlace said.

"We want to know that it's a company that we would want to do business with," she said.

State Purchasing Director Denise Lea said all of the proposals are under initial review by her office to make sure they adhered to the elections request. She said that will take a couple of days.

"There's nothing jumping out at us," Lea said.

"We will look for those mandatory things that will make or break you, then it goes to the evaluation committee," Lea said.

The evaluation committee, whose nine members are being kept secret, will have about two weeks to complete its work and make a recommendation of which firm should get the contract, LaPlace said.

After that, contract negotiations will take place, she said.

The federal government is giving the state money to replace voting machines that don't meet federalVOTE standards. Fifty out of the state's 64 parishes use machines that must be replaced.

The standards are part of a law adopted by Congress to avoid a repeat of the balloting problems that plagued the 2000 presidential election. The state must have the machines in place by the fall 2006 federal elections.

The firms competing for the business were asked to submit a proposal for providing machines for the 50 parishes that don't presently comply with federal standards and another proposal that covers all 64 parishes so that the machines will be standard across the state.

LaPlace said elections officials estimated that implementation in 50 parishes would require 4,634 full-face machines or 8,000-plus touch screen machines. Statewide implementation would require 9,672 full-face machines and in excess of 17,000 touch-screen machines.