Recall to Delay Voting System

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to spend $13.8 million to purchase an electronic touch-screen voting system. But election officials said the recently announced October governor’s recall election would delay the full installation of the system until March.

Registrar of Voters Scott Konopasek said he had hoped the 4,000 voting machines would be in place throughout the county in time for the local elections Nov. 4. But he said his staff cannot install the machines by November and also prepare for the Oct. 7 recall election. Instead, the electronic voting system won’t be in full use until the March 2004 primary vote, he said.

The recall election is also putting a crimp on financially troubled counties throughout the state, including San Bernardino County and Riverside County, where electronic voting machines already are in use. Riverside and San Bernardino counties expect to face funding cuts due to the state budget crisis.

Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend said the county is expected to spend about $1 million to conduct the recall election, in addition to the cost of extra staff time needed to reprogram the electronic voting machines. Because the county did not anticipate the October election, it will probably have to have to pay for the election from the same general fund used to pay for salaries and other expenses.

“It is just going to make a bad situation even worse,” Riverside County spokesman Raymond G. Smith said.

In San Bernardino County, the recall election is expected to cost between $1 million and $1.2 million. County Administrative Officer Wally Hill said the cost of the election would probably be paid out of the county’s $42.5-million reserve fund, which county officials were planning to use to absorb the cuts expected from the state budget crisis.

The recall election comes at a hectic time for many election officials, who are scrambling to set up electronic voting systems before the presidential primaries next March, the deadline set by a federal judge who ruled that the state must replace outmoded punch-card voting machines. In March, voters approved a $200-million bond measure to buy election equipment.

After issuing a call for bids from voting machine firms, San Bernardino County narrowed the field to three in June. A panel of county staff recommended awarding the contract to Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, but representatives for the two other finalists appealed the recommendation, saying the scoring system was flawed. County officials rated the systems by number and gave each a total score.

San Bernardino County officials reconsidered the selection process and the partnership of Virginia-based Maximus and Texas-based Hart InterCivic edged Sequoia in the scoring by less than two points. However, on Tuesday county staff recommended the contract go to Sequoia, even though the firm’s bid was $234,000 higher than the Maximus/Hart bid.

Konopasek defended the recommendation, saying Sequoia had a longer track record in the region and was preferred by county employees who tested the machines from the three finalists. Sequoia’s machines are now used in Riverside County and in Clark County, Nev. Sequoia machines also are used in Snohomish County, Wash., where Konopasek was elections manager from 1997 to 2003.

Representatives for Maximus/Hart objected to the recommendation, saying they should get the contract because they beat out Sequoia on the scoring system. “The scores are the scores,” said David Hogan, a Maximus representative. “We won.”

Several supervisors said they were concerned that the county staff was recommending Sequoia even though Maximus/Hart had offered to use newer technology in its voting machines. Still, the supervisors voted unanimously to direct Konopasek to begin contract negotiations with Sequoia.

The $13.8 million for the contract will be paid with about $8 million in state funding and the balance from the county.