Re: Commissioners pass the buck; Plan Boulder meet tomorrow on voting systems

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 02:01:40PM -0600, Evan Daniel Ravitz wrote:
> As expected, the Boulder County Commissioners today voted to sign a
> contract with Hart InterCivic for some $1.7 million to buy -not
> lease- a proprietary (secret) software voting system based on the
> highly unstable windows operating system, BEFORE NIST and other
> authorities come up with standards for electronic voting.

Correction...  Late-breaking news....  After the main hearing, I did
some further lobbying.  The commission then re-convened, after most of
the people and press left the room, to deal with the budget.

At that follow-on meeting the commissioners agreed to my request to
make the contract available to the public before it is signed.  I
think they will put it online in the next day, hopefully using a
format in which people can do a text search (since it is over 100
pages long).  They requested written comments and postponed final
signing of the contract until next Tuesday at 10:30.

Paul Walmsley also has a paper copy of the contract.

They also cut out at least part of the contingency fund.  I think I
heard a final total of $1.526 million (50% over the number presented
in January).

So I encourage people to look thru, talk about, and make comments on
the contract (in writing or by email) before next Tuesday.  That
meeting will be a business meeting, not a public hearing,
unfortunately.

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
303-494-6493
Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60