The state's chief procurement officer announced Monday that Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software Inc. won the lucrative job of equipping South Carolina with a uniform electronic voting system. While the contract is not official until Aug. 4, Andino said Tuesday that having a vendor in place was vital to a smooth election this year.

But with the State Law Enforcement Division investigating the original contract with ES&S for possible ethical violations, and Attorney General Henry McMaster looking into whether a voter-verifiable paper trail is required by federal law, some critics feel the state is moving too quickly.

The SLED investigation was requested by Sens. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, and Greg Gregory, R-Lancaster.

Gregory said he was not surprised to see the process moving forward. "The Election Commission does not seem all that concerned with the opinions of the General Assembly or the attorney general," he said.

Brett Bursey, director of the S.C. Progressive Network and a voter activist, said, "There are still serious questions to be answered, about the machines to be used and about the commission itself. It is just unseemly."

McMaster's office is researching the issue. Spokesman Mark Plowden said he does not know when an opinion will be reached.

Officials overseeing the original bid process took about two months to decide on ES&S. They took only 10 days to make that decision the second time around.

"People have said that we're rushing, but we've been working on this for almost a year and a half now, in preparation to having it in place for November," Andino said. "And we've been using electronic voting systems since 1986. We've got 24 counties that use electronic systems, so we have experience implementing and using electronic voting systems."

In 2002, President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act into law, allocating $3.9 billion to states and requiring they implement and maintain an interactive, centralized, and uniform statewide computerized voter registration list by 2004. South Carolina is to receive $48 million in HAVA money.

Last week, the S.C. Progressive Network spoke out against a lack of safeguards on the machines under consideration. The group believes an electronic election system should include a voter-verifiable printout, a receipt allowing voters to confirm their votes.

Commission officials disagree.

"All of the machines that are certified for use in South Carolina can produce a paper audit trail, that shows a record of how each vote was cast," Andino said. While the system has no receipt for the voter, there is a list that can be used for a recount., as the law requires.

The question is now in the hands of the attorney general.

Meanwhile, ES&S is set to receive $37.7 million for the job, about $34 million of which will come from the state. Counties will make up the rest by paying for software and hardware maintenance. The work is to occur in two phases.

Fourteen counties will receive the new machines in time for the Nov. 2 election. The rest will be updated the following year.

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