March 26, 2007

Diebold sue Massachusetts over voting machine contract

"One of the nation’s top manufacturers of voting machines is taking the state to court Monday to try to block distribution of machines for the disabled in Massachusetts, saying it was unfairly denied the lucrative contract.

An attorney for Diebold Election Systems Inc. said the company should have been awarded the $9 million contract if Secretary of State William Galvin followed his own criteria when deciding which firm the state should contract with for the new machines.

”Diebold’s proposal provided the best value to the commonwealth,” said William Weisberg, an attorney for Diebold. ”We believe that using those criteria correctly Diebold should have received the award.”

Those criteria include cost, the ability of the company to meet the scope of the request, and the degree to which the machines met technical requirements.

Galvin called the lawsuit ”frivolous” and ”sour grapes on the part of Diebold.”

”We’ve gone through an exhaustive process consulting with the disabled community to find out what’s best for them,” Galvin told The Associated Press. ”We certainly don’t feel like we have an obligation to help (Diebold) market their equipment.”

Diebold’s lawsuit, set to be heard in Suffolk Superior Court on Monday, seeks to block distribution until the court can rule on the merits of the company’s case.

Under the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act, the state is required to have voting machines for the physically impaired. Galvin said the goal is to have a machine in each of the state’s 1,700 polling locations.

Galvin said part of the problem was finding machines that could work for voters with a wide range of disabilities. The goal is to have a machine that disabled voters can use without the help of poll workers or others - in part to protect the secrecy of their ballots.

Galvin chose AutoMARK voting machines, in part because he said the machines produce the same kind of ballot card as other voting machines, so the ballots could be counted together. He said the Diebold machines produced a paper trail that could compromise the secrecy of ballots cast."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at March 26, 2007 10:39 AM