http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0510/S00347.htmSana Cruz Chooses Promises Over Evidence
Thursday, 20 October 2005, 3:58 pm
Press Release: www.votersunite.org
Media Release
For Immediate Release
Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Chooses
Promises Over Evidence
19 October 2005 - The Santa Cruz County Board of
Supervisors agreed yesterday to allow the County
Clerk, Gail Pellerin, to enter into a contract with
Sequoia Voting Systems, a recently purchased
subsidiary of Smartmatic, Inc. which is a
Florida-registered, Venezuelan-owned, company.
The 94-page report Pellerin presented to the Board
contains 69 pages of information supplied by citizen
opponents of the purchase, including documented
failures of the systems in past elections, analyses
showing the higher operating cost of the system, and
testimony by disabled individuals explaining the
difficulties they had using the system. Read the
report here (
http://sccounty01.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/bds/Govstream/BDSvData/non_legacy/agendas/2005/20051018/PDF/047.pdf)
One member of the Public Advisory Committee
established to provide counsel to the current voting
systems evaluation and selection process states the
following reasons why the Sequoia system is not a good
choice:
# It is only conditionally certified in California
and is not certified for the primary election.
# It currently provides no features to allow
manually disabled individuals to vote independently as
required by HAVA.
# Blind voters have complained about the audio
interface of the Sequoia DRE since 2004, and while
Sequoia promised at that time to fix those problems,
it has not yet done so.
He adds that the other option for Santa Cruz County,
the ES&S AutoMark system, was the top-rated system in
a recent survey of over 100 disabled voters conducted
by the Oregon Secretary of State's office and that the
ES&S AutoMark system would fulfill all state and
federal requirements with just the addition of a
readily available privacy sleeve.
Pellerin acknowledges that the Sequoia system is not
state certified and that the acquisition cost is
$171,000 more than the ES&S AutoMark system.
Nevertheless, she recommended the purchase of
Sequoia's system, citing promises from Sequoia that
the system will meet state and federal requirements by
December. She also acknowledges that the county could
find itself out of compliance with HAVA if Sequoia
fails to receive California certification for its
system.
According to eye witnesses at the public hearing on
Tuesday, October 18, every member of the public who
spoke to the Board objected to the purchase of the
Sequoia voting system and preferred the AutoMark
system. Only the county clerks from the cities of
Santa Cruz and Watsonville supported Pellerin. The
Board voted unanimously to accept Pellerin's
recommendation.
John Gideon, Information Manager for VotersUnite.Org
says, “I am shocked that any county board would
base such an important and costly decision on promises
from a vendor and recommendation from the county clerk
that ignore the voices of the voters. The Board
members are all elected officials. The voters of Santa
Cruz County need to make them painfully aware that
they answer to the people and not to Sequoia Voting
Systems.”
In a related incident the day before the hearing,
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed suit
against Santa Cruz County for violations of the
federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), citing
the lack of access to many polling places for voters
with disabilities. The AG's press release states,
"Some of the violations found in Santa Cruz included
polling sites with no wheelchair accessible paths of
travel, steep ramps as much as four-times the legal
slope limit, improperly sized disabled parking spaces,
non-compliant door thresholds and door widths that
were too narrow, and ramps without handrails or edge
protections." The press release can be found here (
http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1228 ).
Ellen Theisen, Executive Director of VotersUnite.Org
said, "The Board's decision to buy non-accessible
voting machines to meet the accessibility requirements
of HAVA would be laughable if it weren't so serious.
Add to that the fact that they aren't even providing a
way for voters with disabilities to get to the
machines, and you have to wonder if they're paying
attention."
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This press release can be found at
http://www.votersunite.org/info/releaseSantaCruz10-19-05.htm