Monday, November 19, 2007

CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen sues ES&S; seeks $15 million in damages

Today California Secretary of State Debra Bowen issued this news release announcing that she is suing voting equipment manufacturer ES&S for selling voting equipment to five counties that was not certified.

State law requires voting equipment to be certified before it can be used in California. According to this Statement of Findings, also issued today by the Secretary of State, ES&S delivered 972 AutoMARK A200 accessible voting devices to five California counties: Colusa, Merced, San Francisco, Marin and Solano. County elections officials believed they bought and received certified AutoMARK A100 machines, and have already used the A200 machines in elections, apparently not knowing the model they had was uncertified.

It is incredible to me that, more than three years after Diebold was sued for $5 million for providing uncertified equipment to California counties, another vendor would pull a similar stunt. Debra Bowen is making vendors abide by the law, preventing them from cutting corners, and is not permitting them to dictate their own terms for selling voting equipment in California. Once again, she's shown herself to be fearless and nothing short of heroic.

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