PROBLEMS WITH SEQUOIA OPTICAL SCANNERS: WHO DO YOU TRUST?

In Palm Beach County, Florida, there are problems in some of the county's high-speed optical-scan tabulation machines, made by Sequoia Voting Systems.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

With just a few days until the Nov. 4 general election, questions about the ballot counting machines' accuracy leave Palm Beach County vulnerable to legal challenges and could erode voter confidence, voter advocates say. One other Florida county and several others across the nation have reported similar problems — with accuracy, phantom votes and other issues — involving Sequoia Voting Systems machines.

The same machines that failed an Oct. 1 test to see whether they could sort ballots will be used to process absentee ballots and to tally results of a recount if one is needed.

There have also been problems in New York

Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software – have been told to correct scores of problems in their devices and related materials. Sequoia, for instance, has 104 discrepancies in its source code and ES&S has 174 discrepancies in its documentation, according to the state board. Previous progress reports indicated that the board wasn't satisfied with SysTec, the firm doing the testing, either.

"The problem the vendors are having is New York state has a higher standard than they're accustomed to," says Bo Lipari, executive director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, a group that has pressed for rigorous vetting of electronic voting devices. New York is believed to be the only state to require that BMDs and scanners meet guidelines promulgated by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in 2005. "What we're seeing is the vendors are not prepared to meet that standard." In fact, several vendors have pulled out of the competition in New York since 2006. One company that withdrew in July, Premier Election Solutions of Texas, cited the costs of complying with New York's testing regime as its reason for pulling out.