  |
|
 |
|
| Letter Reveals that ES&S Was Threatened with California Decertification |
|
|
|
| By Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA | |
| December 23, 2005 | |
|
Associated Press writer Juliet Williams has described
a letter in which California Assistant Secretary of State for Elections
Bradley J. Clark "threatened to start the process of decertifying
Election Systems & Software machines if the company didn't address
the state's concerns immediately.” Apparently the letter revealed “incidents of incorrect counting of turnout figures, a malfunction that prevented voters from verifying their choices and a touch-screen machine recording the wrong vote during a test.” It is imperative that company representatives "take corrective action as soon as possible," Clark wrote. Though the letter was apparently sent just over a week after California’s special election on November 8th and ES&S representatives have already met with the Secretary of State’s office, the Associated Press article is the first public disclosure of the election incidents. In the intervening five weeks, county clerks across California have been scrambling to make purchasing decisions in advance of the Help America Vote Act deadlines. Problems addressed in Clark’s letter, which has not been made public yet, were not detailed in the AP article, but seemed to include both touchscreen and optical scan machines produced by ES&S, the largest of the US voting machine manufacturers. Ten California counties used ES&S optical scanners in November’s election, while just one, Merced County, used the company iVotronic touchscreen machines. State Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) issued a public statement calling on the Secretary of State’s office to “immediately release all correspondence to all vendors, and all documentation related to the certification of any and all voting equipment and voting systems.” Comment on This Article
You must login to leave comments...
Other Visitors Comments
There are no comments currently....
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
| |