ES&S Betrays Agreement with Ion Sancho
By Susan Pynchon, Florida Fair Elections Coalition
January 13, 2006
Election Systems and Software (ES&S) has reneged on its agreement to sell its optical scan voting system and the AutoMark ballot marker to Leon County, Florida. Leon County had planned to purchase the ES&S voting system following two successful, authorized hacks of the county's Diebold AccuVote optical scan voting system.
The tests of Leon County's Diebold voting system, conducted in May and December, 2005, were authorized by Leon County's courageous Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho. These tests showed that election results could be altered, without detection, with access only to one Diebold memory card. As a result of the successful hacks, plus Diebold's subsequent refusal to answer county officials' phone calls or to provide software required for upgrades to the Diebold system, the Leon County Council voted to authorize the purchase of the ES&S system. ES&S had first contacted Sancho in December, 2004 and again in June, 2005 to offer to sell its equipment to Leon County.
Everything appeared to be going as planned, when suddenly, in a voice-mail message received on December 29, 2005, Gary Crump, ES&S Chief Operating Officer, told Sancho that the company had decided to deal only with long-time customers due to equipment deadline considerations. (This statement is patently untrue, since ES&S went ahead and contracted with Volusia County, Florida after agreeing to sell to Leon County).
snip
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=730&Itemid=113see also
ES&S Screws Leon County, FL in Last Minute Pull-Out!
Voting Machine Company Betrays Agreement with Election Director Ion Sancho Just Days Prior to Jan 1 HAVA Deadline!
Is ES&S Paying Back for Their Evil Twin Company, Diebold? Are They Afraid of the Same Scrutiny Those Machine Received in Leon County? Another Sunshine State Mystery Unfolds…
1/13/2006
by Brad
Additional Reporting by John Gideon
Are the voting machine vendors now teaming up against an election official who dared reveal the vulnerabilities of their voting machines?
snip
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002277.htm