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NYTimes Fails to Correct Erroneous Endorsement of Holt Election Bill
Guest Blogged by John Gideon
Summit County has recently had problems with failed memory cards as related by BRAD BLOG on March 9 and March 10. The problems in Summit County concerned a 30% failure rate found in pre-election testing for those cards. That problem alerted folks in North Carolina to test those same cards on their own ES&S machines where they discovered last week that more than 1000 of them failed to work!
Now that those problems have been in the media (Yes, even the MSM has reported the problems) the vendor has decided to not be cooperative with Summit County, OH.
The ES&S on-site project manager was not allowed by the company to attend a board of elections meeting to explain why there were problems with memory cards. Board members have also complained that ES&S staffers installing the system have suddenly become cold and getting any information is "like pulling teeth".
The Akron Beacon Journal also reports on other problems the board is having:
``They won't give us the opportunity to proofread the ballot,'' [Board Director] Williams said. He explained that the board, working in teams of Democrats and Republicans, routinely triple-checks the rotation of names on the ballots, but ES&S won't provide copies of the ballot to do that.
[Board Deputy Director] Donofrio said in early copies the rotation --- the order in which the candidates' names appear on the ballot --- was incorrect.
Williams said ES&S' attitude has been that the extra checking ``was not necessary,'' but the problems the board had with the company's performance have proven that it is.
He said the board hoped to order the ballots on Monday. ``We'll be lucky to have them ordered by the end of the week,'' he said.
However, that does not mean that ballots will not be printed in time for the May 2 election.
And in addition:
Donofrio said she intends to ask the company to replace the broken equipment.
[Republican Board member] Arshinkoff accused ES&S of ``doing the job of three men --- Larry, Curly and Moe.''
``This is inexcusable. I think ES&S has failed in their capacity as a vendor. If this doesn't work in the May primary, we're going to have to make real hard choices,'' he said.
Meanwhile, SoS Ken Blackwell's office has, in effect, just shrugged their shoulders and said that they hope both sides can get along and adhere to their obligations. Of course it was Ken Blackwell who chose ES&S as the vendor for Summit County.
We will be sure to keep an eye on this situation and report back when there is more to pass on.
