Hart to get more elections money
County OKs contract to print Nov. ballots

By Brad Turner
The Daily Times-Call    02 September 2005

BOULDER ? The manufacturer that built Boulder County?s maligned ballot-counting machines for the 2004 presidential election has won the contract to print the county?s November mail ballots, even though another company submitted a lower bid.

Austin, Texas-based Hart InterCivic will snag between $159,800 and $183,600 for printing approximately 190,000 ballots, depending on the size of individual ballots, according to a contract unanimously approved Thursday by county commissioners.

K&H Integrated Print Solutions of Everett, Wash., offered to print the ballots for between $99,000 and $124,000 but would not offer a sample ballot for review, elections coordinator Josh Liss said.

The county clerk?s office is betting that November?s election will resemble Boulder?s municipal election in March, when Hart software flawlessly counted Hart-printed mail ballots in a few hours, Liss said.

?In viewing their work in that election, we felt Hart would be the best vendor,? he said.

  
The 2004 election was rockier. Printing errors on ballots by contractor Eagle Direct caused Hart machines to reject thousands of ballots and led to a 68-hour tally. In response, the commissioners appointed a nine-member panel to determine what factors contributed to the Election Week mess.

The Election Review Committee found that Hart gave unrealistic estimates about its equipment when making its sales pitch to the county in early 2004, saying it could tally the elections in about nine hours.

At the committee?s hearings, voting activists advocated scrapping the Hart system altogether. The ERC ultimately endorsed using Hart machines in November but made no recommendations about future elections.

?Obviously, we want to be careful on this,? Commissioner Tom Mayer said during Thursday?s hearing. The commissioners then approved the contract without further discussion.

Joe Pezzillo, a member of Citizens for Verifiable Voting, said he is angry that an out-of-state company has won printing contracts for two elections in Boulder County after claiming its software could read ballots ?printed at Kinko?s.?

?We?re obviously dependent on the vendor that sold us the system,? Pezzillo said. ?Why are we throwing good money after bad to accommodate this system that has let us down??

Only two contractors offered to print ballots for November, even though election officials contacted nine vendors, Liss said.

Hart will also print and mail letters notifying residents of the November election for $18,464, according to county documents.

Representatives for Hart and K&H could not be reached for comment.