Arkansas Blog

Yes, people were denied ballots. Greene County ring a bell?

Glitches in Pulaski, and Salines COs.

Ohh, and BTW, one of your own writers told me other day (s)he would like to see Jim win this race. Not that that matters to anyone, or anything. Just noted.

Voting-machine firm good fit, Daniels says
BY MICHAEL R. WICKLINE

Posted on Sunday, November 20, 2005

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/136981/

A committee appointed by Secretary of State Charlie Daniels gave a higher score to a Texas company than to the Nebraska firm to which he awarded a $ 15 million-or-so contract to provide Arkansas counties with new voting machines.

Despite the difference in score, the six-member evaluation committee stopped short of recommending that Daniels award the contract to either Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb., or Diebold Election Systems Inc. of Allen, Texas.

"I think I speak for the entire evaluation team when I say we wish this had been a clear-cut decision one way or the other, but it simply was not," Janet Miller Harris, deputy secretary of state for elections, wrote in the committee's 15-page Oct. 26 letter to Daniels.

"Considering all factors, I believe either company could offer a system in the best interests of the state," she said.

The only committee members who stated opinions in the report were Daniels' chief deputy, Peggy Gram, who preferred ES&S, and Susie Stormes, director of the state Board of Election Commissioners, who preferred Diebold.

When he announced his decision Nov. 1, Daniels said he selected ES&S based on cost, trade-in options for existing equipment and ES&S' experience with many Arkansas counties.

POLITICAL ISSUE The decision is becoming a factor in the 2006 race for secretary of state. Jim Lagrone of Bryant, a Republican candidate, said that he finds it interesting that ES&S hired a friend of Daniels', lobbyist Andy Crawford of Little Rock, to work on its behalf.

"If this is true, it demonstrates what I have been saying all along as I have been talking to voters across Arkansas," Lagrone said. "When it comes to decisions made by the secretary of state and the management of the off ice, there are definite questions of trust and ethics."

Daniels said every votingmachine vendor seeking to do business in Arkansas hired a local representative.

"With my years of experience in state government, I am acquainted with each and every one of those lobbyists, but not one of them tells me how to make decisions in my capacity as secretary of state," said Daniels.

"This very important decision is one I take seriously, with due diligence and consideration, and my selection was based on cost, experience of ES&S in Arkansas and the ease of transition from our existing voting systems," he said.

Daniels has been secretary of state since 2003. He was state land commissioner from 1985-2003. The new voting machines and voter registration system are being f inanced largely with federal funds, plus state matching funds.

CRAWFORD Crawford registered as a lobbyist for ES&S on Oct. 15, 2003, and removed the firm from his list of clients on his lobbyist registration on July 21 of this year, according to the secretary of state's office. The office issued a request for proposals for new voting machines on July 11 of this year, according to the committee's report. But Ken Fields, a spokesman for ES&S, said the firm hired Crawford under an agreement that expired in March of this year. Crawford "has not been subsequently engaged," he said. Crawford said ES&S hired him to learn who the decisionmakers are in Arkansas and about the process. He introduced the firm's officials to Daniels and Daniels' aide Harris. "I worked with them through the voter registration [system contract ]," he said. "I had nothing to do with voting machines."

VOTER CONTRACT In January, Daniels decided to award a separate $ 4. 9 million contract for a new statewide voter registration system to ES&S.

He cited ES&S' commitment to customer service in Arkansas, its proven voter registration product and experienced project management team.

A six-member evaluation committee appointed by Daniels recommended awarding that contract to ES&S.

The cost of ES&S' proposal was about $ 1. 4 million more than Saber Consulting's, but the committee said it felt that the larger investment would secure more people, experience and resources. Crawford made a nonmonetary contribution of $ 712. 50 to Daniels' campaign for secretary of state on March 14, 2002, when he provided food for an event, according to Daniels ' campaign finance report. He also made a nonmonetary contribution of $ 400 to Daniels' unsuccessful Republican foe - first lady Janet Huckabee - on June 24, 2002, through fundraising, according to Mrs. Huckabee's campaign finance report.

OTHER LOBBYISTS Government Solutions is a lobbying firm that includes former state Rep. Courtney Sheppard, D-El Dorado. The firm registered on Sept. 4, 2003, to lobby for Diebold. Government Solutions contributed $ 300 to Daniels' campaign on Aug. 16, 2001, according to Daniels' report. Daniels said he counts both Crawford and Sheppard among his friends.

He added that he considers lobbyists Martha Harriman of Van Buren, who represented Hart Intercivic of Austin, Texas, and former Rep. Ted Mullenix, R-Hot Springs, who represented Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., to be friends, too. Neither Hart nor Sequoia submitted a proposal for Daniels to consider.

Mullenix and Associates contributed $ 250 to Daniels ' campaign on July 24, 2001.

Daniels said he stayed out of the process of evaluating the Diebold and ES&S proposals to provide voting machines. Then he met with the committee twice in deciding to award the contract to ES&S.

He said he never talked to Crawford about ES&S' proposal for voting machines.

Daniels has estimated the cost of ES&S' voting-machine proposal at $ 15. 2 million based on each county's preliminary voting equipment selections, though final terms of the contract still are under negotiation. He's estimated the cost of Diebold's proposal at $ 17 million.

The committee gave Diebold's proposal 1, 322 points out of a possible 1, 500 points and gave ES&S' proposal 1, 212 points.

The committee awarded points based on seven factors, including experience and qualifications, financial stability, security management, voting system, experience and cost.

Stormes wrote that she preferred Diebold because she felt comfortable with what it would cost to own Diebold's voting machines.

"I do not feel that ES&S provided all the information requested," wrote Stormes. Gram acknowledged that "we still have some unanswered questions." But she wrote that ES&S is "the cheapest short-term solution for Arkansas, and gives us what we need now. " I would have to cast my vote for ES&S in the belief that during final contract negotiations our outstanding questions and concerns would be negotiated to our satisfaction," Gram said.

CONSULTANT'S VIEW Glenn Newkirk of Raleigh, N. C., a consultant hired by Daniels, said that it appears that ES&S' proposal offers the best short-term cost to the state if there's "a substantial mix of voting technologies in the counties." If there's a greater emphasis on the uniform use of touch-screen voting machines in the counties, then Diebold has what appears to be a narrow edge in cost in the short term, he wrote in an Oct. 22 letter to Harris.

Thirty of Arkansas' 75 counties have tentatively decided to have only touch-screen voting machines, according to the secretary of state's office.

Thirty-four counties have tentatively opted to have one touch-screen machine for the handicapped at each polling place and use some form of optical scan machine for counting paper ballots. Eleven other counties have not decided what voting machines to use.

Gram noted that poll workers and clerks in 51 of Arkansas' 75 counties already are familiar with ES&S equipment, and 50 of the county clerks are satisfied with the relationship.

IMAGE ISSUES Gram said she worried that Diebold had an image problem stemming from possible bias toward the Republican Party and widely publicized security concerns about the f irm's machines.

"With the high profile newspaper coverage these incidents have had, I believe that it will be difficult to achieve voter confidence in this equipment," she wrote.

"I fear we will be spending a larger percentage of our time explaining about the company rather training the people," Gram wrote.

But Harris wrote that the selection of either company will incur criticism from "some vocal activists who are passionate about voting technology issues [and ] will be critical of both Diebold and ES&S, and who will allege that these companies seek to engage in malicious vote tampering."

She said there is strong support for a new state law requiring the touch-screen voting machines to produce paper receipts for voters to verify their votes and for election officials to use in recounts.

Some Democratic Party members have said they're dissatisfied with Diebold because its chief executive officer stated in a 2003 invitation for a fundraiser that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" for President Bush in 2004, Harris said.

"That political misstep has received a lot of press, even at the national level, and it will be sure to receive more should Diebold be selected in Arkansas," Harris said.

"The bad news of course to a lesser degree ES&S has the same problem," she said.

DANIELS Daniels said he tried to not let partisanship influence his decision. "We do business all day long, and we do business with Democrats, and we do business with Republicans," he said. Some people aren't going to be happy with electronic voting machines, he said, and he's going to catch flak for it. But he said he's confident that he made the right decision. "If I made the wrong decision, the buck stops here. But I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this works right," Daniels said.

Copyright © 2001-2006 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com

Give 'em hell Chuck!

Why would he have started anything with AS&S between the primary and runoff elections?

Smart move by SOS.

No one in Greene County was denied a ballot. Everyone who wanted to vote voted up here. Don't believe the lies told by the erstwhile preacher Jim Lagrone.

I did not hear that from Lagrone. I was personally told that by a man that WAS denied a Republican ballot in Greene Co.

The Ark Times would defend Adolph Hitler if he were a democrat and criticize Jesus Christ if he were a Republican.

Blog:

Nice propaganda, but not the truth.

The dates show Daniels and co. cut it way too close.

---

I couldn't resist this one. I have to admit that I think your SOS got bad advice.
And cut it too close with the deadlines. You guys had way more time than NC!

If I am reading Arkansas' RFP correctly, the due dates cut it way way
too close!

Arkansas had their RFP posted on July 14, 2005! Your law was changed in early part of 2005.

N. C.'s RFP was posted on October 11, 2005. NC voting machine law changed in late August 2005.


Arkansas RFP - July 14, 2005

Page 6 of RFP - Chart with implementation schedule

Page 56 of RFP - Phase I (13 counties replacing punchcards, levers and others) must be completed by May 23, 2006

(Compare to North Carolina punchcard and lever counties had to order by December 23, 2005 and all counties received machines in March 2006.
There were 5 straggler counties who hadn't ordered, they were offered money to hurry up by April 1.)

Page 58 of RFP - Phase II (the remaining counties) must be completed by November 2006 General Election.

http://www.sos.arkansas.gov/elections/elections_pdfs/vs_rfp_7_14_2005.pdf

Arkansas RFP amendment - July 28, 2005

Nothing here about extending or shortening the due dates for the voting machines.
There is an interesting note on page 5 and more on page 6 (I don't show here) to address ethical issues.
I would love to see the answers to these questions, from any of the vendors!

B. AFFIRMATION REGARDING BRIBARY CONVICTIONS
I FURTHER AFFIRM THAT:
Neither I, nor to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, the above business, or any of its officers, directors, partners, or any of its employees directly involved in obtaining or performing contracts with public bodies has been convicted of, or has had probation before judgment imposed, or has pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of bribery, attempted bribery, or conspiracy to bribe in violation of Arkansas law, or of the law of any other state or federal law, except as follows [indicate the reasons why the affirmation cannot be given and list any conviction, plea, or imposition of probation before judgment with the date, court, official or administrative body, the sentence or disposition, the name(s) of person(s) involved, and their current positions and responsibilities with the business]: ______________________________________________________________

On page 9 there is also a disclosure form to find out if any of the voting machine companies's employees are related to
anyone in the General Assembly, etc.


http://www.sos.arkansas.gov/elections/elections_pdfs/vs_rfp_amendment1_072805.pdf

Unity is the election management software that is used to create the ballot
definition
files etc, and to accumulate the vote totals.

Just like versions of windows operating systems, Unity has many versions,
and
I am not sure that any work with the Eagle III.

Different versions work with the Eagle 4 and 5, but you have to check
closely
on the NASED list.

I think that Glenn Newkirk must have screwed up the RFP, allowing for non
compatible
systems to be put together.

I hear that Daniels is looking to replace the optical scanners with
touchscreens.

That may have been the plan all along.

ES&S will make alot more money if Arkansas gets rid of the Eagles.
The Eagles don't require the ES&S software, and this saves tens of
thousands for the
county on software licensing fees.

Newkirk likes touchscreen machines, so maybe he screwed up the RFP on
purpose.

If the Vendor misrepresented that the machines could work together, then
the vendor should take back the touchscreen machines, but then the counties
would not need
the Unity software anymore either -

----what software? they weren't sent any? Gee, so much for Daniels saying ES&S had a 'superior product'

 http://epaper.ardemgaz.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=ArDemocrat/2005/09/21&ID=Ar01503

   A proposal by AccuPoll Inc. of Tustin, Calif., failed to meet three of the four requirements, said Janet Miller, deputy secretary of state for elections.

    Among other things, AccuPoll failed to demonstrate a manufacturing, organizational and financial capability for meeting the state's schedule and deadlines and for simultaneously installing and supporting voting systems in 75 counties, she said.

Got to hand it to ES&S, they are better at botching an election than almost anyone else.

The SOS needs to offer much more than a post election diatribe. He needs to offer his resignation.

The rest of his crowd, media included, needs to stop covering for him. Daniels knew there were issues with ES&S, their software and their machines, their ballot printing & their delivery for three years and bought them anyway from his buddy & ES&S lobbyist Andy Crawford.

"If I made the wrong decision, the buck stops here. But I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this works right," Daniels said.
Bull. All he has done is hired a firm to "look into the problems" and hired them at our expense! What a joke, he isn't going to do anything "in his power".
Like I said, last call Charlie....

Ballots cut too short and crooked so that the machines wouldn't read them. but the blog, the times and the SOS say there were few problems in the runoff. That's true, most of the counties refused to use the evoting machines and opted for paper ballots.

Sheez.

Officials React to Saline County Voting Problems

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0606/336291.html

Saline County - The election did not exactly go off without a hitch last night. Problems in Saline County forced the election commission there to finish counting ballots Wednesday morning by hand. The unofficial results were not in until around 11:00 Wednesday morning.

Election Commission officials say the problem was a ballot misprint, which they say prevented the scanner from reading the ballots. ES&S is responsible for the printing of the ballots. Commission officials say the problem was that some, not all, of Tuesday's ballots were cut crookedly, and as a result the machines were not able read them.

(Greg Brown, Election Commissioner) "The technician was here first thing at that point it was determined that it was the ballots being misprinted, not the machine itself."

That's why several boxes were counted the old fashion way -- by hand.

(Brown) "In school you've done the five hash marks, and that's the way they do it."

A statement from ES&S says the company takes full responsibility for the error, adding some ballots were cut too narrow. The company feels progress has been made since the May primary, leaving workers optimistic for even fewer problems in November.

(Linda Montalvo, Chief Deputy Clerk) "I think they found the problem and in the future, the ballots will be printed and cut correctly and we'll have smooth sailing."

It's interesting that ES&S ^claims^ responsibility for their voting debacle in AR, but is leaving the 10+ other states where they did the same thing hanging and are blaming those counties.

Not one time have I heard anyone demand they refund the $15 million.

The GOP, seeing that they cannot win the Gov, LG, or AG, has decided to attack the SOS, Charlie Daniels. Nothing could be more transparent. Everyone knows it.

Charlie is not w/o fault, but the US Congress and Ark Leg provided almost insurmountable hurdles for our SOS. And everyone seems to forget that Charlie chose the cheaper of the two vendors. How many of you nay-sayers would be ripping him a new one if he chose a more expensive vendor that most assuredly would have had software problems?

Typical Democratic f--- up...They can't manage any thing...they are just not good business people....Charlie should let a good Republican do the real work and this voting machine business would straighten out....

Typical GOP response: No specifics, but be sure to blame the D.

Charlie wins in a walk.

"The committee gave Diebold's proposal 1, 322 points out of a possible 1, 500 points and gave ES&S' proposal 1, 212 points. Stormes wrote that she preferred Diebold because she felt comfortable with what it would cost to own Diebold's voting machines. "

Uh, not laughing with you, where did you get that Charlie picked the cheapest?

I am fairly certain I read that Diebold's bid was around 2 million dollars higher than ES&S.

I guess he could have went with the Republican Diebold and the exact same thing would have happened, but it would have cost another couple million.

No ballots?

Craighead was short THOUSANDS of ballots during the primary.

THOUSANDS??

Please state your source. This is the first I have heard of THOUSANDS of people not getting to vote.

Diebold's bid was approxiately $2MM higher than ES&S. Look it up.

The county election commissions and clerks have some responsibility re: ballot printing. It is ludicrous to suggest that SOS should be responsible for printing ballots for each county.

Honestly I have not made my decision on who I will vote for SOS.

Answer me this.

Did a committee recommend another company and Mr. Daniels go with a separate company that has contributed to his campaign?

Or is that propaganda.

No one can argue that he does a really good job with some of the duties of the SOS.
Also he is a very likeable guy.

From what I can gather, the committee was basically split. I know at least one member preferred Diebold and at least one preferred ES&S. I think they were the only two that had strong feelings either way. I think the SOS made the best decision at the time since ES&S already had such a strong presence in Arkansas, not to mention saving taxpayers $2,000,000. You can search for Diebold on Google and see for yourself their problems with this years election.