Vote device deal raises questions

The counties' lobbying group backs a company's machines and will get some of the profits.

By STEVE BOUSQUET

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 29, 2001

JACKSONVILLE -- In the cutthroat competition for Florida's lucrative voting-equipment business, one company has outmaneuvered its rivals.

Election Systems and Software will offer discounts to counties and pay a percentage of its profits to the Florida Association of Counties in return for the exclusive endorsement of its equipment.

The unusual arrangement between Omaha-based ES&S and the lobbying group for county government brought heated criticism Thursday from the chairwoman of the state association of election supervisors.

Pam Iorio called it an "awful" idea that could give short shrift to her colleagues, whom she said have the technical know-how to best evaluate equipment.

"It's not a wise move," Iorio, the Hillsborough County supervisor, said after addressing county leaders at their annual meeting at a downtown Jacksonville hotel.

"For the Florida Association of Counties to conclude that one vendor is better than the others without the input of the supervisors is not a wise move," she said.

The county association's executive director, Mary Kay Cariseo, said her group would get a small percentage of the total amount of ES&S's equipment sales to counties -- money that will help pay for the group's operations.

Cariseo said ES&S also will provide discounts to counties that hire the firm, such as free training, extended warranties on equipment and reduced costs when company employees are needed to install the machines.

"We have to pay the bills," Cariseo said of county commissioners. "Why shouldn't we be able to go out and try to get together a plan to pool our buying power and save the counties some money? None of the other companies were willing to step up to the plate."

The FAC's endorsement was sent last week to all county commissions and county administrators in a memorandum on the FAC letterhead signed by Cariseo.

The "endorsement agreement," as the letter calls it, comes at a time when ES&S and its rivals, Global Election Systems and Sequoia Voter Systems, are aggressively jockeying for a piece of business that is in the tens of millions of dollars. Simultaneously, the vendors are racing to have their equipment certified by Secretary of State Katherine Harris' experts so it can be used in the 2002 elections.

ES&S bills itself as the world's largest elections-only company. But in seeking to win favor in Florida, it might also have been helped by the fact that one of its lobbyists, former Secretary of State Sandra Mortham, also lobbies for the Florida Association of Counties.

Cariseo and an attorney for the county group, Lee Killinger, downplayed any role Mortham had in securing the deal.

"We like her a lot," Killinger said, "but it's not my impression that the decision was based on anything Sandy had to say."

Telephone messages left Wednesday and Thursday with Mortham, a former House minority leader from Largo, were not returned.

In abolishing the punch-card ballot systems that caused so much havoc last November, the Legislature has ordered every county to switch to newer machinery by 2002 that would greatly reduce the number of overvoted ballots that tarnished the presidential results.

Most counties are expected to move to a precinct-based optical scan system that detects overvotes at the polling place and gives an erring voter a second chance. But some supervisors are eager to switch to the more expensive computer touch screens, similar to ATMs.

"We believe that the joint relationship with the FAC will provide all Florida counties, regardless of size, more cost-effective services and equipment than any individual county could negotiate on its own," said Aldo Tesi, ES&S's chief executive officer.

The ES&S deal raises anew one of the awkward realities of life for election supervisors as they seek to update their equipment with the help from $24-million from the state.

Although they are independently elected constitutional officers, they have no spending authority of their own and must ask for money from county commissioners, who set property tax rates and must take the heat when taxes go up.

Paul Craft, chief of the voting systems section in Harris' office, said the effort to reduce voting equipment costs made sense. But the deal brought complaints and charges of favoritism from rival firms.

John Krizka, a Sequoia sales executive, said his company had faith that county elections supervisors would evaluate each company's wares independently. "The supervisors are astute enough to see through these types of tactics," Krizka said.

"It's puzzling to see any group involved with county government endorsing a company whose system has never been involved in an actual election in the state of Florida," said Larry Ensminger, a spokesman for Global Election Systems.

ES&S's Model 100 precinct-based scanner, with its companion high-speed absentee ballot reader, was certified by the Division of Elections earlier this month, and the company's touch-screen equipment was being put through its paces this week.

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