February 13, 2009 - State, county election officials differ on reimbursement from machine vendors

Paper: The Desert Sun
Title: State, county election officials differ on reimbursement from machine vendors
Date: February 13, 2009
Author: Nicole C. Brambila

County election officials do not plan to seek reimbursements the state says it is entitled to for more than $120,000 for election audits required on electronic voting machines, The Desert Sun has learned.

Election officials contend the cost to hand-count more than 72,000 e-ballots are not reimbursable.

“My contract is with the vendor, not the secretary of state,” Riverside County Assistant Registrar of Voters Doug Kinzle has said. “If the secretary of state would like to bill them for our expenses, she can do so.

“I have a contract with (Sequoia) that doesn't say that I can bill them for that.”

Officials only completed the hand-count last week because of the sheer volume of e-ballots, the most of any in the state.

A complaint filed with the secretary of state claims that county Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore falsely certified the Nov. 4 election as complete and final.

Dunmore, who has not returned phone calls seeking comment, has said in media reports that to complete the tally within the allotted time would have cost taxpayers an additional $120,000. Because she has not been tracking costs, a total cost is unavailable, as reported on mydesert.com.

An election watchdog group estimates the true cost to the county could actually be much more.

“Failing to collect the legal reimbursement costs from Sequoia means that taxpayers are paying for what the voting machine companies should have paid for,” said Tom Courbat, executive director of SAVE R VOTE, a county elections watchdog group formed in 2006. “This is insane. It's like totally free money.”

Courbat, who worked as the Riverside County finance director until 1994, estimated the costs for the November election alone could be upward of $250,000 for salaries, benefits and overhead.

Michelle Shafer, a Sequoia Voting Systems spokeswoman, declined to say whether the company had reimbursed any counties that used Sequoia voting equipment.

Among a growing uneasiness about security, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified the state's electronic voting machines following a security review last year that forced Riverside County to return to paper ballots and all but abandon the 3,500 machines it twice bought from Sequoia Voting Systems for more than $19 million.

The county is conditionally permitted to use one e-voting machine at each precinct for disabled voters, provided it manually counts all the electronic ballots cast.

“Elections officials are required to conduct the audits, and the vendor is required to reimburse the jurisdiction,” the conditional recertification document by the secretary of state reads.

“Vendors, not counties, apply to the secretary of state to have their voting systems approved for use in California,” Nicole Winger, deputy secretary of state, said via e-mail.

“Certainly any vendor that has permitted a county to continue using a reapproved voting system did so understanding that all of the conditions of the system reapproval document apply — not just the conditions the vendor may deem more convenient or less costly.”

The county has held three countywide elections since the first of the year, from none of which Dunmore has sought reimbursement.

Given a $90 million shortfall, the county should look into reimbursing those costs, Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley said.

“If we can get reimbursed from the vendor, then we should be reimbursed,” he said.