Scanners will count all ballots (entire State of Neb.)

[Omaha Steve]

Scanners will count all ballots

BY LESLIE REED

WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN - Hand-counting of ballots in Nebraska will become a thing of the past under a new election contract announced Tuesday by Secretary of State John Gale.

The AutoMark voter assist terminal

The state completed a nearly $11 million contract with an Omaha company that will result in a near total overhaul of Nebraska's vote-counting systems by the end of the year.

The contract with Election Systems & Software also means that people with visual impairments or physical handicaps will be able to cast their ballots in privacy.

Forty-two Nebraska counties now count ballots by hand, with the remainder already using optical scanning equipment.

Gale said that disparity raised concerns that ballots might be counted properly in one county but not in another.

The company's AutoMARK machine, which permits disabled voters to mark an optical scan ballot, also was key to the contract, Gale said. The machine lets voters "read" a ballot with an audio headset and presents multiple options for voting.

Nebraska will be one of the first states to comply with the Help America Vote Act, Gale said.

The law was passed in response to the controversial Florida balloting in the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Aldo Tesi, ES&S president, said the Nebraska contract is one of the most significant for his company as a result of the post-2000 election law overhaul, which has increased the company's business nationwide.

The Omaha World-Herald Co. holds a minority stake in ES&S, which provides voting equipment in 47 percent of the counties in the United States.

The company offers both optical scanning equipment - the type that reads blackened ovals on paper ballots - and touch-screen voting machines.

Gale said ES&S was the only bidder on the Nebraska contract. He said his office issued a request for other potential bidders to make sure that no other company offered similar technology.

He said he also consulted with an advisory panel and the state purchasing office before moving forward on the contract.

"We're very satisfied with the price and terms we reached in the contract," Gale said.

The contract provides 69 new high-speed central scanners for large counties, at a cost of about $3.8 million; 172 hand-fed precinct scanners for small counties, at a cost of about $750,000; and 1,366 AutoMARK terminals at each polling place, at a cost of about $5.6 million.

Douglas County will get eight new high-speed scanners, saving the county the $41,500 it cost to lease seven machines for the 2004 and 2005 elections, said Election Commissioner David Phipps.

The $10.9 million contract will be paid almost entirely through a federal appropriation. Counties will pay nothing for the new equipment.

Nebraska has received $18 million of about $3 billion distributed nationally to improve election equipment.

About $4 million went for another ES&S contract, an electronic voter registration system. About 75 of Nebraska's 93 counties now use that system, with the remainder to join next month.

Gale said Nebraska had two key requirements to meet under the federal law: allowing disabled voters to participate without assistance and uniform vote counting in all counties.

Contact the Omaha World-Herald newsroom

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1673&u_sid=2052792


This is in the State that has US Senator (owns part of ES&S) Hagel.

[grannylib]

1. Auditing? Paper trails? Or just more thefts and rePiglicans in office?

[LiberalFighter]

2. ballots might be counted properly in one county but not in another

So now they will be improperly counted in all counties

[LiberalFighter]

3. How much extra does it cost to use only scanning equip?

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. It occurs to me that the visually disabled, using audio sets

and this 'automark' system, still have no way of knowing what their cast vote was - they still get no visual confirmation of their vote. At least if they had a trusted friend assisting them in marking the ballot they could be sure that the ballot would be cast as they wished.

Optical scanners can be rigged to change the vote scanned into the tabulator, but at least the original paper ballot remains to be visually inspected if the vote is challenged. I find it astounding that anyone who cares about an honest vote would ever sanction touch-screen voting.

[go west young man]

5. Can you say Chuck Hagel?

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03/_200.html

[go west young man]

6. Sorry link doesn't work. I'll try again. :)

www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03/_200.html

[ladjf]

7. The state of Nebraska could save everyone a lot of money

and time by simply declaring all Republican candidates as winners.
Why bother with voting?

[shance]

8. That is not good. Get ready for stolen elections.

Either paper ballots hand counted by citizens of the county, or allow private companies who are unaccountable except to those who are buying the election will count your votes.


Which do you prefer?

[SoCalDem]

9. $5.6 million + $750,000 would pay a LOT of election workers to count

ballots, and that money would end up being spent within the communities where the "counters" lived.. The ballots could be re-counted if necessary too..

Instead, they are willing to pay those huge sums of cash to corporations who have a sloppy track record, and are willing to do it because the counties who hand-count and get it right, are making the others look bad, so naturally ALL will have to use the sloppy/expensive method now..

A very republican way to handle the election process :puke:

[depakid]

10. Bananna republic

It just blows me away that the Dems let Hagel get away with this back in the 90's- and that they continue to do so.

Yet another reason why they're become irrelevant on the national level and in so many states across the country.

[Omaha Steve]

11. This makes it even worse!

State law in Nebraska states that votes in a recount must be counted in the same exact way as the first counting was done. So as it stands, there will never be a hand count again in the state unless the laws is changed.

[WhiteTara]

12. wholesale vote theft is what

this is all about. We are so screwed.