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I have been trying to find out what types of voting equipment, by manufacturer, are used in our state. Many other states make this public, but not ours, as far as I can tell. Wisconsin Elections Board has a PDF file online which breaks down the equipment as either "paper" or "mark-sense".
I called the elections board to ask if they knew how I might find a list of specific voting equipment used in Wisconsin. I was given a run-around, basically. I was told Mark-sense was a "generic term" that "includes several types" (including optical scanners), but he was very vague. Not only that, but at the end of our phone conversation, in which I asked just a couple simple questions, he said "And whom am I speaking to?" I said "curious citizen". Since when do we have to give our names when asking simple questions about our election equipment?
I know some of our equipment is manufactured by the infamous ES&S. This from a letter written by Kevin J. Kennedy, Executive Director of the Wisconsin State Elections Board:
Subj. Approval of Electronic Voting Equipment November 2, 2001
The Elections Board has received several requests from vendors of electronic voting equipment to have their equipment approved for use in Wisconsin. No electronic voting system may be marketed in Wisconsin unless the State Elections Board approves it. (S. 5.91 (intro), WI stats)....
The elections Board staff scheduled voting equipment demonstrations for 5 vendors during the week of October 29th 2001. ONly two vendors, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), and Governmental Business Systems (GBS) were able to demonstrate their equipment. the remaining vendors had not completed the qualification testing with a NASED approved independent testing authority. (!!-see Bev Harrises remarks about NASED)
Both vendors submitted a touch screen direct record electronic voting system for approval. ES&S also submitted firmware upgrades for its Model 100 polling place based counter and its Model 550 central counter. Both these models use optical scan ballots. The election board approved an earlier version of this equipment. ES&S also submitted an upgrade to its Unity election management software for approval.
The Elections Board staff and clerk panel believes the soft and firmware upgrades ended up approving the ES&S Model 100 and Model 550, and the Unity election management software...
I find it interesting but disturbing that ES&S was pushing their equipment so hard right after 9/11 and during the anthrax scare. Also that other companies were kept from demonstrating their equipment to our elections board by NASED.
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