Diebold machines pressed into service

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Nearly two years after suing Diebold for faulty, uncertified voting equipment, Alameda County may cast its vote with the Ohio-based company yet again. County supervisors are scheduled to hold a special meeting Thursday to choose a new voting system expected to be in place for this fall's election. County elections officials are recommending the board choose a "blended" voting system -- consisting of paper ballots with optical scanners, plus a touch screen at each polling place -- made by either Diebold or Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems.

Although the new system would be different from the all-touch-screen Diebold system the county embraced five years ago, it could commit the county to contracting with a company that already has left a bad taste in the mouth of voters and county officials alike. "I am not supportive of Diebold," said Keith Carson, president of the board. "I've said that many times. And at a number of meetings on this topic, the people who speak are in overwhelming opposition to Diebold, too."

The county's relationship with Diebold started in 2001, when the company helped lead a rush to touch-screen voting after the Florida ballot-counting fiasco during the 2000 presidential election. The county purchased 4,000 Diebold touch-screen machines for $12 million, but the move soon proved troublesome. The equipment had various glitches, including once assigning votes to the wrong candidate. Diebold agreed in 2004 to pay the state and Alameda County $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it made false claims when it sold its equipment to the county. The settlement came after local and state officials found Diebold had installed uncertified software in the county's touch-screen machines and that its system was vulnerable to hackers.

"There certainly is a rocky history with Diebold and Alameda County," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation. "That history certainly factors into voters' confidence and how secure the public feels with these machines." Concerns about Diebold have not kept others from using the company's equipment. Twenty counties will use Diebold systems as the primary voting system for today's election. That includes Alameda County -- the only Bay Area county using Diebold -- which is borrowing 50 touch-screen machines and 60 optical scanners from another county since its old Diebold system did not produce a paper record and was rendered inadequate by the state at the beginning of this year.

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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/email/news/14751040.htm

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