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CO Daily: Citizens Voting Comments In




The excerpt below is "troubling" (to pick a word), especially considering that the AutoMark is already federally certified, and has been certified in other states (including neighbors NE and NM). Why would it be "blocked" by the SOS' office in Colorado? Real world testing by disability communities in other states found the AutoMark to the be number one choice among devices, besting DREs. Colorado's HAVA law is based on federal HAVA, so if the device is compliant with federal HAVA (per the NASED certification statement below), then certainly it is compliant with Colorado's HAVA implementation, and if not, there's a new legislative session just starting!

Wouldn't it be helpful if the Boulder County Clerk issued an RFP (or "RFI") for such devices? Wouldn't that help expedite their certification from both the vendor's and the state's perspective?

Joe

AutoMark Certification Status from the National Association of State Election Directors:

http://www.nased.org/NASED_Qualified_Voting_Systems_11_18_05_Paged.pdf

(See page 1 of 17, the ES&S AutoMARK Voting System N-1-16-22-22-001 achieved 2002 VSS certification on 10/24/2005)

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http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2006/01/05/news/c_u_and_boulder/ news2.txt

Citizens' voting comments in

By RICHARD VALENTY Colorado Daily Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2006 7:35 PM MST

In election terminology, “turnout” was good during the second week of citizen comment regarding Boulder County's process to select new voting equipment for the 2006 contests.

[ ... ]

But John Gardner, voting systems specialist with the Colorado Secretary of State's office, said only DREs have been certified as HAVA-compliant in Colorado to date.

The Election System and Software (ES&S) AutoMARK system allows the disabled to mark a paper ballot without assistance, but Gardner said the system is not certified in Colorado and probably won't be in the near future because a voter with mobility problems might not be able to take the ballot and transfer it to a device for counting.

“Our law requires the elector to be able to cast their ballot privately and independently,” said Gardner.