Voting-machine company says no thanks, Leon
Sancho says he's not out of options yet
By Jeff Burlew
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

 

None of the three voting-equipment companies certified to sell in Florida will be doing business in Leon County.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Sequoia Voting Systems confirmed in an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat that the company will not sell its touch-screen machines to Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho. The other two companies, Election Systems and Software and Diebold Election Systems, also have said they will not sell to the county.

   
That would seem to leave Sancho with no options when it comes to buying new voting equipment. While the county already owns Diebold optical-scan machines, it must buy new devices for the disabled to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.

But Sancho says he has a plan. Another company - which is not certified in Florida - has offered to sell him the needed voting devices, he said. He's hoping it can get certified by the state by about June 1, which is a month after a deadline recently set by Secretary of State Sue Cobb.

"I was approached by a vendor from another state who has systems . . . which have a low cost and innovative process for providing disabled voters with a method to cast their ballots," he said.

Sancho declined to name the company. There are four major voting equipment companies in the United States along with other smaller ones. Hart InterCivic and the three companies certified in Florida are the biggest. Most states certify three or fewer companies for their systems.

It's unclear, however, whether a company would be able to get certification fast enough. Certification of voting systems in Florida can take months or even more than a year, said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State.

Sancho, who met last month with a Sequoia representative and county staff, said he was under the impression he had a "done deal" with the company. But a Sequoia spokeswoman, Michelle Shafer, said there was never an agreement. She said the company, which does business in 21 states, wants to focus on its current customers.

"Obviously, we're in business to provide products and services to customers, and it's not something that we take lightly - turning down an opportunity," she said. "We want to be able to appropriately service our customers, and we're not going to put ourselves in a position to not do that."

Sancho, an advocate for secure elections and voting systems with paper trails, has found himself in a bind since he and BlackBoxVoting.org, an organization devoted to a fair election process, hacked into the county's Diebold system. He and others have said the tests prove that Diebold memory cards could be tampered with to change election results without anyone ever knowing.

The tests led to a falling out between Sancho and Diebold, which stood by its equipment. ES&S later told Sancho it didn't have enough product or support staff to enter into a deal. Meanwhile, Sancho missed a Jan. 1 deadline to get voting devices for the disabled, prompting Cobb to issue the May 1 deadline. Sancho must submit a new plan to the state by the end of Friday, and county commissioners are holding a workshop on the issue Tuesday.