Vote machines no-bid pact signed
Auditor 'not happy' with liability limits spelled out in deal
Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News
Published May 19, 2006 at midnight
Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher says he has reluctantly signed a contract to purchase touch-screen voting machines for the August primary election.
Complaining that the deadline gave him no choice but to approve the $1.4 million no-bid contract with Sequoia Voting Systems, Gallagher said the city would be better off if it had more than one company vying for city business.
Gallagher said he was particularly concerned by a clause in the contract that strictly limits Sequoia's liability if something goes wildly wrong on election day.
"I believe this limitation should not have been a part of this contract," Gallagher wrote to Alton Dillard, interim director of the Denver Election Commission.
"I am not happy about the circumstances that have led to the necessity of accepting such a limitation in a contract that I have no choice but to sign."
New machines are required by the federal Help America Vote Act to ease access for disabled voters.
The city is buying 240 new machines that use touch-screen technology with a paper audit trail.
Sequoia machines like those Denver is buying were the focus of a sharp controversy in Cook County, Ill., after some tallies for a March election were delayed for days.
Some politicians blamed Sequoia, while company defenders said poorly trained election workers were most at fault.
Gallagher last week refused to sign the contract, and asked the city attorney's office for clarification about the liability limitation.
City Attorney Cole Finegan wrote back that the limitation does not extend to physical injury or property damage.
One of the city's attorneys said Sequoia's liability is limited if machine malfunctions invalidate an election, but not if a voting machine, for instance, falls on a voter.
Finegan told Gallagher that "I agree that we should avoid limiting the liability of city contractors and vendors whenever possible."
Because new voting machines have to be certified by the state, Denver would have little time to seek out a new supplier. Sequoia, Gallagher wrote, "had us over a barrel."
The city has used older Sequoia voting machines for years, and election commissioners strongly back the company. City Clerk Wayne Vaden, who sits on the commission, wrote a strong letter of recommendation for Sequoia after the Chicago election controversy. He wrote that the city would recommend the company and its equipment "to any voting jurisdiction."
Touch-screen voting
Some facts about the Sequoia Voting Systems machine Denver is purchasing:
• Dimensions: 10-by-17-by-26 inches when stored or transported; 28-by-28-by-60 inches when open for voting
• Weight: 38-40 pounds, depending on options
• Memory: 16 megabytes standard, expandable to 2 gigabytes
• Language capacity: Up to 12
• Ballot styles: Up to 2,000
• Maximum ballot size: 500 pages; 1,000 contests, races or proposals; 10,000 candidates
Source: Sequoia Voting Systems
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