ES&S Agrees to Comply with Open Source Mandate

[helderheid]

Dear Friends of Open Voting:

At last Wednesday's San Francisco Elections Commission public meeting, an ES&S representative stated that ES&S would comply with our technology disclosure requirement should that become law. ES&S is the largest election systems vendor in the United States.

This makes the third vendor to make such a statement publicly. This is important because the main objection against our bill, AB 2097, which would have required full public disclosure of all voting system technology, was that vendors would leave the state -- thus costing tax payers many millions.

So, one of the main obstacles to getting our bill signed into law is being removed. This will make it easier next year -- we plan to re-introduce the bill soon.

The question was put to the ES&S representative by OVC stalwart Brent Turner. We'll post an audio recording of the exchange (or a transcript) as soon as it's available. Sequoia was the first vendor to agree as such. We got them to put it in writing in their contract with Alameda County in June. Diebold is the only major vendor that hasn't explicitly agreed.

Please support OVC so we can follow through on this work!

Thank you and best wishes.

Alan Dechert
http://openvoting.org

[texpatriot2004]

1. K & R for Transparent Democracy nm

[napi21]

2. Good strategic move on their part!

I could never understand why Diebold was willing to risk being a supplier, just because of arrogance in keeping their coding private? I know they have the lions share of ATM's and maybe that's a reason, but with all the criticism of nonverifiable voteing, and5 years of BS,I think Sequoia made a very good business decision. they well may overtake Diebold.

[ComerPerro]

5. Maybe that's the real reason Dobbs hates them so much

[Bluestar]

7. A professional company would develop a separate code for

ATM's versus voting machines. Obviously, they aren't professional, and they have an agenda.

[helderheid]

8. I agree!

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. K & R

[sutz12]

4. Hopefully, it's not too little, too late.

Obviously, it's not in time for 2k6. Can we get real machines with open source, AND paper trail for real auditing by 2k8?

I really hope so. I think Dems could kick ass in fair elections.

[helderheid]

6. I hope by 2008