City Decides Not To "Roll The Dice" With Sequoia

There was a collective sigh of relief from election integrity activists in San Francisco at the announcement that the city’s  Department of Elections has pulled out of contract negotiations with Sequoia Voting Systems for Edge touchscreens. Alarm had been voiced at a Rules Committee hearing in February over the Department’s plans to purchase Sequoia equipment that have not yet been certified for use in the State. At the hearing the Sequoia spokesperson stated that the company did not intend to submit their IRV software for federal testing until May 31, leaving serious doubts about the company’s ability to meet the city’s charter requirement for ranked choice voting in the November election.

In a San Jose Mercury News article Supervisor Ross Mirkahimi was quoted "we cannot afford this roll of the dice, we should never not have a Plan B for something as critical as a clean, honest election process." With less than three months before June primaries, the supervisors decided they couldn’t take the risk.

In a San Francisco Chronicle article Sequoia sales representative Michelle Shafer, said, "The fact is that we mutually determined that we will not be working together for this June election, because we don't have a signed contract in place."

The city will instead keep the optical scan voting system from Election systems and Software that is currently the only system that is certified for ranked choice voting. Automark ballot-marking devices in each polling place will provide accessible voting for disabled San Francisco.