$1-Million Contract for Vote-Count Unit Awarded

Ignoring staff recommendations, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to award a $1-million contract to a San Francisco firm for a new ballot-counting system.

After months of intense lobbying by the major manufacturers, Sequoia Pacific Systems of San Francisco was chosen to supply the county with new machinery in time for November’s community college, school and special-service district elections.

Sequoia’s price for the new system, which uses computer cards with candidates’ names printed on them and a hole-punching machine to mark ballots, is about $500,000 more than the pen-marking system recommended by a board-appointed advisory committee.

County voters currently use ballots that are marked by hand with a pencil.

Controversial Decision

The decision is controversial because the new system will replace existing vote-tally equipment installed five years ago, also over the strong objections of county staff. The existing equipment has been criticized for its slow performance and for unexpectedly high ballot printing costs.

However, this time county staff was impressed with both companies that competed for the contract and simply stated a preference.

“We’re very enthusiastic about the system that has been chosen” despite the board’s disagreement with county staff, said R.A. (Bert) Scott, director of the county General Services Agency.

As late as Monday afternoon, Sequoia Pacific’s lobbyist, Frank Michelena, was visiting board members in their offices. Moreover, county Republican Party Chairman Tom Fuentes wrote letters to supervisors and called Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley to urge selection of Sequoia Pacific.

Recommended DFM

A committee appointed by the supervisors that included Registrar of Voters Al Olson, Data Services Manager Howard Dix, Hazardous Materials Officer Bob Griffith and specially hired consultant Herb Rosenhack previously recommended Irvine-based DFM Associates for the contract.

“We don’t feel the county did the right thing,” said DFM President Tom Diebolt after Tuesday’s decision.

However, Diebolt said he did not think any improprieties had occurred during the bidding process.

But he said the county had locked itself into using Sequoia Pacific’s printed ballots whereas the vote-counting machines DFM offered could read “almost any ballot printed by any competent print shop.”

Diebolt said he did not employ the services of a lobbyist because “Our firm has never had to deal directly with county board members before . . . In every county where our services have been selected, we dealt only with county staff, who made the selection and then followed up with recommendations to the board. Often, we were simply an item on a consent (no discussion) calendar (agenda).”

Fuentes said he recommended Sequoia Pacific to Riley and other board members after he met with Michelena and a Sequoia official to discuss the importance of audit trails in close recounts, such as occurred in last year’s 256-vote victory by Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) over Republican challenger Richard Longshore. The term “audit trails” refers to the process of being able to trace and analyze the ballots cast so that none are lost or misplaced. Fuentes said he received no compensation for recommending Sequoia.

Meanwhile, DFM did not lose out entirely.

Two weeks ago the Board of Supervisors awarded a separate $724,451 contract to DFM for a computerized election management system. This system, which is separate from vote marking and tallying, will display registration and other information stored on video display terminals at the registrar’s office. Currently, the office uses handwritten records and microfiche files.

And, as part of Tuesday’s decision, DFM was awarded a $266,612 contract for minicomputers that will tie vote tallying and other record-keeping functions together.

Altogether, the county is awarding contracts worth nearly $2 million in order to scrap the existing $1.6-million vote-counting system after only five years of operation.

The existing system was sold to the county by Valtec Co. of Tulsa, Okla.

There was intense lobbying--including controversial campaign contributions from vendors to county supervisors--during the selection process last time. In the end, the board ignored the recommendations of its own staff and picked a system that had never been tried.

Valtec hired Lyle Overby, an aide to former supervisor Ralph Diedrich, during the last bidding war. Overby was not involved in the current competition, county officials said.

Currently, Sequoia Pacific’s vote-counting system is used in several counties, the largest being Ventura and Kern.

The county’s advisory committee had recommended DFM in partbecause it believed purchasing equipment and services from one company would be better than buying from several different sources.