| Senators question conflict of interest in voting machine
contract COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Some state senators are questioning whether the director of the state Election Commission steered a lucrative voting system contract to a company she had ties to. On April 12, the commission announced its intent to give Election Systems & Software, a Nebraska-based company with more than 74,000 voting systems worldwide, a $32.4 million contract to take effect April 28. While there is no official investigation, several competing companies have cried foul over the contract, said Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia. That includes Scott Borchardt, president and CEO of South Carolina-based Palmetto Unilect, which bid $33 million. "Our equipment has a better reputation. We would have provided 100 jobs for South Carolinians, and we would have kept that money in-state," he said. He attributed his bid's failure to director Marci Andino's "prior relationship with ES&S." Borchardt said he would file a complaint with the state procurement officer next week. For two and a half years, Andino worked for Unisys, a company specializing in computer system integrations and server technology. In 2002, ES&S and Unisys teamed up to bid for Georgia's statewide voting system. The companies later formed an alliance to provide statewide voter registration systems nationwide. Andino worked for Unisys during its partnership with ES&S in Georgia. She denied a conflict because Unisys isn't involved in the South Carolina deal. She also said she did not influence the selection committee in ES&S' favor. Her accusers, she said, "need to see everything the committee did in making the decision." Knotts is one of three state senators, along with Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, and Sen. Greg Gregory, R-Lancaster, looking into the ES&S bid. Along with worries about a conflict, the senators are concerned about the quality of ES&S equipment, the fact that an out-of-state company was given preference over an in-state company and the decision to go with one provider for the entire state. Knotts and Gregory also have asked Attorney General Henry McMaster for an opinion on the legality of forcing local election commissions to use one uniform system. "If something goes wrong, we are stuck with this one vendor," Knotts said. "That's not a good position to be in." Currently, the state has five electronic systems at work, as well as optical scans and punch cards. Andino said the decision to go with one statewide provider was made by the 26-member committee she served on. "We've been criticized for not being able to provide the same level of service to all counties, which is a result of having so many different types of machines," Andino said. "Having one system will address that problem and will also do away with voter confusion when moving from one district to another."
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