Voting machine company has its collar felt
At the time, it noted that no study of the voting machines built by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) had been conducted because the company had not submitted the documentation on its machines needed to perform a study.
Now the other shoe has dropped. The California Secretary of State's office announced today that it is investigating ES&S for allegedly selling uncertified voting machines in violation of state elections laws.
ES&S's Automark 100 voting machines have been certified in California since August 2005. However, ES&S is accused of selling its later model Automark 200 machines before they had been tested by the Federal government in August 2006. The Automark 200 machine still has not been submitted to the State for its examination and certification, according to a Secretary of State spokesperson.
About 1,000 voting machines are involved (the actual number of machines sold has not yet been verified by the State). The machines in question were sold to at least five counties, but that number could increase too, because 14 counties are reported to use ES&S voting machines.
According to California law, ES&S could be fined $10,000 per uncertified machine, or $10 million dollars for 1,000 machines. In addition, ES&S could be required to make full refunds to counties that bought the uncertified machines, which reportedly would cost another $5 million dollars.
ES&S could also be barred from doing business anywhere in the State of California for one to three years, which could mean headaches and unanticipated voting machine replacement costs for the 14 counties that currently have ES&S voting machines.
It's not known how many such uncertified voting machines ES&S might have sold in other states. ยต
L'INQ
Wired
See Also
Diebold voting machines are insecure
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