Reply #12: Diebold among winning bidders for N.C. voting equipment sales

[MelissaB]

Diebold among winning bidders for N.C. voting equipment sales

GARY D. ROBERTSON

Associated Press


RALEIGH, N.C. - The State Board of Elections approved three companies Thursday to sell voting machines to all 100 counties in time for next year's elections, including a firm that complained earlier it couldn't comply with all the rules for computer software.

Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems all met minimum technical and administrative standards to sell in North Carolina, as determined by a panel of computer and election experts.

...snip

Keith Long, who is advising the elections board with the voting equipment changes, said after talking this week with the three winning bidders that "none of them have the source code for all of their software they use."

Computer experts still will be able to review any changes the machine manufacturer has made to the outside software to check if those revisions may have caused the problem, Long said.

Diebold Election, based in Allen, Texas, threatened to pull out of the bidding because of its courtroom defeat this week. It decided to stay involved but still has questions, spokesman Brian Bear said. The company now provides voting machines to about 20 North Carolina counties.

More: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/13304893.htm