Fire Sale on NEW Voting Machines
These voting machines haven’t even been through a fire yet, and already the price is going up in smoke.
It’s the Diebold company that is slashing prices in its offer to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Diebold offered to sell its touchscreen computer type voting machines for about $2,000 each. Less than 60 days ago, Diebold priced its stuff to North Carolina at $3,000 each. And in Iowa last year the price was $3150. That was paid by about 60 counties under a master contract set up in the office of the Iowa Secretary of State.
Diebold offered the lower price to Pittsburgh in late January, saying its offer would expire Feb 7. Today Diebold said they were still open to a deal even though the deadline had passed.
Ohio is supposed to have negotiated its own deal with Diebold that guaranteed the price Ohio paid would match the lowest price paid by any other state. So they may be able to get back some money. But I don’t see that mentioned in Chet Culver’s master price list.
February 16th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Diebold is getting desperate. I hope the Ohio folks can get some money back.
I am glad that Diebold didn’t want to do business in North Carolina, even though our State Board of Elections certified them.
Here is the real reason Diebold left NC, see this section of the law:
SECTION 2.(a) Part 2 of Article 14A of Chapter 163…
(3) The chief executive officer of the vendor shall sign a sworn affidavit that the source code and other material in escrow is the same being used in its voting systems in this State. The chief executive officer shall ensure that the statement is true on a continuing basis.
(4) The vendor shall promptly notify the State Board of Elections and the county board of elections of any county using its voting system of any decertification of the same system in any state, of any defect in the same system known to have occurred anywhere, and of any relevant defect known to have occurred in similar systems.
(5) The vendor shall maintain an office in North Carolina with staff to service the contract.
(b) Penalties. – Willful violation of any of the duties in subsection (a) of this section is a Class G felony. Substitution of source code into an operating voting system without notification as provided by subdivision (a)(2) of this section is a Class I felony. In addition to any other applicable penalties, violations of this section are subject to a civil penalty to be assessed by the State Board of Elections in its discretion in an amount of up to one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) per violation. A civil penalty assessed under this section shall be subject to the provisions of G.S. 163‑278.34(e).”