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Sanbernadino sequoia decision halted Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Voting system decision halted
Board to weigh companies' appeals
By MATT BENDER, Staff Writer
With the county Board of Supervisors poised to award an electronic voting system contract today worth more than $10 million, the county's purchasing director granted appeals to two finalists protesting the selection process.
Ohio-based Diebold Inc. and a partnership between Virginia-based Maximus and Texas-based Hart InterCivic both filed protests last week after being passed over for a selection committee's recommendation.
The board had been scheduled to consider today whether to award the contract to Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, which won the selection committee's nod, or one of the other two finalists. With Monday's decision, the board will hold off until a committee made up of county staffers considers the appeals.
The appeals process, which was expected to take roughly two weeks, could go as late as mid-July, said county spokesman David Wert. It's not immediately clear whether the delay would prevent the county from having electronic voting in place for the November election.
"We're at a point where a full implementation in November ... could be in jeopardy if we have major delays,' said Registrar of Voters Scott Konopasek.
Konopasek said his office is starting to look at options for a partial deployment of the system.
"As soon as we know how early a decision could be made, we'll refine those plans,' he said.
In his decision, Purchasing Director Aurelio De La Torre ruled that some of the issues raised in the two protests should be forwarded to an appeals committee. That decision dealt only with whether the issues were eligible to be appealed, not whether the appeals were justified, Wert said.
The Maximus/Hart team scored 285.5 points in the selection process, only 0.7 points behind Sequoia's 286.2, while Diebold got a score of 263.4, 22.8 points behind. It's not clear whether the appeals committee could order the selection committee to change its recommendation, or whether it can simply make its own recommendation, Wert said.
Maximus/Hart had appealed the scoring on cost, warranty, ease of use and experience.
It charged that the county should have scored the companies on a purchase of 4,000 electronic voting machines which is what Konopasek is recommending not on the 3,200 the county envisioned in the request for proposals. It also argued that its system has a lower cost of ownership than the other two.
De La Torre rejected that argument, writing that those issues weren't intended to be part of the scoring process.
He did, however, grant an appeal on Maximus/Hart's charges that Diebold got an artificially good score for cost because it did not include a specific cost for a hard-copy backup to the electronic system, called a voter-verifiable ballot. Maximus/Hart also argued that it should have received a higher score based on ease of use and accessibility to disabled people, saying it had scored better than Diebold in a demonstration and that its system had been rated the most accessible in a magazine survey.
De La Torre responded that the demonstration wasn't part of the scoring process.
Maximus/Hart also argued that its scores for experience were too low, but De La Torre said this was an issue of professional judgment that could not be appealed.
De La Torre did grant an appeal on the issue of its warranty, which Maximus/Hart said met and, in some cases, exceeded the county's requirements.
"I'm obviously pleased that they're going to look at the warranty and the voter-verifiable ballot issue,' said Hart InterCivic Chairman David E. Hart.
He said he still plans to argue the other cost-related issues before the Board of Supervisors.
"They'll know what's going to be the lowest, best overall price for the county,' Hart said.
Diebold had appealed the scoring on cost, pricing, warranty and references. The county denied that appeal request.
It also argued that the other two vendors had not met the county's requirement for a two-year warranty on all components of the system.
In addition, although Konopasek said the county had contacted all 13 references Diebold provided, getting only one response, Diebold charged that it had contacted only three of the references.
Mark Radke, director, voting industry, for Diebold, said one of the two references that didn't reply was on vacation and the other one was conducting an election when the county inquired.
Those two appeal requests were granted. Radke declined to offer an immediate reaction Monday afternoon, saying he had not yet had a chance to review the county's letter.
"I'd like to see exactly what it says before I say anything about it,' Radke said.
The appeals committee will be appointed by John Goss, the assistant county administrator who oversees the Registrar of Voters' Office. Wert said it has not yet been appointed, but that it likely would not include anyone who was on the selection committee.
Alfie Charles, public affairs director for Sequoia, downplayed the decision, noting that it dealt only with the procedural issue of what could be appealed, not the substantive issue of whether the appeals were valid.
He also said Sequoia hopes the county will consider issues that could improve Sequoia's scores as well as those of the two competitors. Because the appeals process was limited to vendors that were denied the committee's recommendation, Sequoia could not protest scores it believed were incorrect.
Charles said that if the county plans to put the system in place for November's election, it shouldn't let the issue drag on too long.
"It's an extremely complex undertaking that the county is about to embark on,' he said. "It's important for the county to address those issues as quickly as they can.'
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