State meeting may reveal UniLect's intentions

BY BEN HOGWOOD

NEWS-TIMES

RALEIGH ? The county will gets its first opportunity to find out if UniLect, the manufacturer of the county?s voting system, plans on continuing business in North Carolina this Tuesday when the state holds a mandatory meeting for vendors who plan to respond to a request for proposals (RFP).

The state will only accept bids to provide voting equipment from vendors attending the meeting at the State Board of Elections office,

Jack Gerbel, president of UniLect, said he received the RFP on Wednesday and a member of his staff is currently examining it.

He said he does plan on attending Tuesday?s mandatory meeting, but does not yet know whether UniLect will submit a bid.

"That?s all I?ve got to say about it," he said. "I?ve got no idea."

The state board issued the RFP this Tuesday, Oct. 11. It describes in detail the requirements for voting equipment companies to be certified in North Carolina. These include having a paper record of each individual vote cast to be used as backup if a hand-to-eye count or recount is ever necessary, and alerting each voter to any and all undervotes before a final vote is cast.

The vendors must also agree to post a performance bond of $7.5 million or a letter of credit to cover damages sustained to the state and its counties resulting from a defect in the system.

The State Board of Elections will decertify all the state?s existing voting systems on Jan. 1, 2006, and following that date, only the vendors who win the bid will be certified.

Counties will then purchase systems from the ed vendor or vendors, depending on the state?s final list.

According to the RFP, the cost of the contract will be at least $42 million, and while it states it is a multiple vendor contract, it adds that the state is not obligated to contract with more than one vendor.

The deadline to have vendors submit a proposal is Nov. 4. Vendor finalists will be asked to give an oral presentation and demonstrate their products between Nov. 16-18 and any contracts will be awarded on Dec. 1.

Joyce McCloy, coordinator for the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting, has read the RFP and was impressed with its thoroughness. According to its Web site, the coalition is a nonpartisan group that wants every vote to be recorded on a paper ballot.

"It sets some pretty good standards that should make it (the elections process) easier for all counties."

She was particularly pleased that the paper ballot has to be viewable by all voters, including the blind and disabled.

However, she did not throw her endorsement behind the RFP at this time.

"We?re going to have to really look at it before we can be sure," she said. "I?m excited about this RFP, but there?s still more to learn about it," she said.

Bill Henderson, chairman of the County Board of Elections, had not read the 51-page document as of Thursday but was glad it had finally been sent out.

"We?re moving down that road at a very deliberate pace," he said.

The county is using paper ballots for this year?s municipal elections and bond referendums after the board of elections, under the direction of former Chairman Ed Pond, decided against using the UniLect system due to a programming error in the 2004 election.

Mr. Henderson said the paper ballot system worked very well in the Atlantic Beach municipal election.

"There?s no question that all the votes got counted," he said.

While he has heard some criticism regarding paper ballots being a step backward, Mr. Henderson disagreed.

"It?s a drastic step backward when you don?t get the votes counted," he said.

Still, he said the paper ballot process would not be suitable for larger elections, so the county will need a system that can tally the votes with a low margin of error.

Mr. Henderson is particularly glad the RFP requires voting systems to have a paper record of the ballots cast. Mr. Henderson ran for a seat on the County Board of Commissioners in 2002 and lost by around 500 votes to now Commissioner Ray Muns. While he didn?t doubt the outcome, he said it would have been nice to have a physical record in the case the vote was so close a recount would be necessary. With the UniLect system, he said, there was nothing to recount.

Ms. McCloy doubted the state would certify UniLect, primarily because the machines operate on the Windows 98 platform, which she said was unreliable.

"My daughter?s computer has Windows 98," she said. "I don?t plan on spending another dime on it," she said about her personal computer.

The RFP can be viewed at http://www.ips.state.nc.us/ips/AGENCY/PDF/04454100.pdf