Thursday, June 02, 2005

David Orr and Chicago's Election Board picks a good company for new voting machines

Cook County is getting new voting equipment, and the two election authorities (Cook County Clerk David Orr for the suburbs and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners for the city) made a good choice this week in picking Sequoia's opitcal scanners with one electronic machine per precinct.

They've had a very open process over the last two years, including two separate two-day open-to-the-public demonstrations with all the possible vendors.

My past gig with the Center for Voting and Democracy (www.fairvote.org) led me to learn more about equipment vendors than I ever thought I'd care to know, and I think Sequoia has the best reputation.

Plus, they are one of the vendors that are open to actually conducting Irish-style ranked voting (where you enjoy a first-choice and a second-choice on the ballot), so that's a bonus.

4 comments:

So-Called Austin Mayor said...

From the Trib:"We are surprised that the city and county would move toward a technology that dates back to the mid-1980s," said David Bear, a spokesman for Ohio-based Diebold Inc., a finalist.
http://tinyurl.com/9llen

Yeah, the mid-1980s -- back when people had confidence that their votes were actually being counted.

Friggin' Diebold.

Nathan said...

http://www.sequoiacap.com/

this is what comes to mind...

Jeff Wegerson said...

What other ranked capabilities does it have? Their website was pretty skimpy on details of the optical-Scan reader.

Have you got links to sources with deatils on the counting capabilities of the Sequoia Insight counter?

Dan Johnson said...

I don't have any links, but if the RFP that the county and city issued, they asked whether vendors can handle ranked ballots, and Sequoia said yes. Plus, they are going to do Santa Clara County in California which is moving to IRV.