State senators Jake Knotts, R-Lexington Co., and Greg Gregory, R-Lancaster, have asked the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate the State Election Commission for possible criminal activity in the bid process for new voting machines. A SLED spokesman says the agency has received the request, is getting legal advice, and couldn't comment on whether there will be an investigation.

Here's the background for the story: to help prevent problems like Florida experienced with its paper punch card ballots in 2000, the federal government is giving states millions of dollars to buy electronic voting machines.

South Carolina accepted bids for the machines and announced that a company called ES&S had won the bid. Palmetto Unilect, a local company that lost the bid, protested the award. The state's chief procurement officer found that there were problems with the way the contract was awarded, tossed out the award and ordered that it be re-opened for bids.

Now, senators Knotts and Gregory want to know if there was any criminal wrongdoing in the bid process. "There were some allegations that the bid process was totally set for one company," Sen. Knotts said.

One question looming over the whole issue is whether the state even has the authority to buy voting machines for the counties. A recent attorney general's opinion says it doesn't because state law gives authority to the counties to buy their own machines.

Sen. Knotts says, "It appears that the state has moved in and tried to say, 'Hey, here's $49 million that we've got a shot at. Let's take it away from the county and let us make the purchase of the machines. And we'll only have to spend $32 million and we'll have the rest of it to put in some fund that we can spend the way we want to.' That's not the way to do business." 

Election Commission director Marci Andino says that the entire bid process has been handled by the Information Technology Management Office of the state, and that all state procurement codes were followed.

She says the state law says the counties can "purchase, lease or otherwise procure" voting machines. She says the "otherwise procure" part would allow the counties to ask the state to buy the machines, so state law is not being broken. She says the counties that are still using punch card ballots have requested that the Election Commission handle the purchasing of new electronic machines.

If the state doesn't have the new machines in place for the November elections, it will lose $2.1 million from the federal government, Andino says. The new bids are due Friday, July 9th, and the machines could still be in place by November.

She says the first machines will go to the punch-card counties and three others that use optical scan ballots.

The punch card paper ballot counties are: Aiken, Anderson, Cherokee, Florence, Greenville, Kershaw, Lexington, Oconee, Sumter and York. Spartanburg County uses punch cards for its absentee precinct. Abbeville, Calhoun and Union are the counties that use optical scan ballots.