-M100 optical scan machines (the ones into which you put your ballot) <\/right><\/p>\n Wake County Board of Elections Director Cherie Poucher wants to certify two of her own technicians to inspect, fix and maintain the county\u2019s 248 voting machines each year.<\/p>\n ES&S offered to certify two technicians in a training program in Omaha, Kan. The cost is $15,000 each, an extra $5,000 annually for recertification and 60 percent of the county\u2019s $174,000 annual contract.<\/p>\n \u201cThat 60 percent of a contract when we did the work was unreasonable,\u201d Poucher said. \u201cBut we knew we still had to work with ES&S because you have to have ES&S parts. There were certain things that we knew we still needed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd evidently our commissioners really didn\u2019t like that,\u201d she said. \u201cThey felt they were being held hostage and that ES&S was a monopoly.\u201d<\/p>\n All North Carolina counties purchased new voting equipment that year to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). ES&S has maintained the machines since they were purchased in 2006.<\/p>\n At that time, ES&S offered one year of free maintenance. After that, the state paid the annual cost using HAVA funds.\u00a0 That money is now frozen.<\/p>\n Voting machines are stacked and stored in the Elections warehouse when not in use.<\/p><\/div>\n Poucher said her technicians already do most of the work, testing and certifying machines before each election.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we have four elections in a year, we do diagnostics, cleaning, complete testing. Our logic and accuracy testing is … I think we do more than is required by the state board,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then that machine is certified by my technician.\u201d<\/p>\n ES&S visits once a year, working for only 80 hours. Poucher said ES&S\u2019 annual visit basically amounts to a cleaning at a cost of nearly $174,000 per year.<\/p>\n Poucher, Warren, and members of ES&S and its co-company Print Elect met last week to discuss the terms. Poucher said they are looking for certification for her technicians and continued maintenance at a lower percentage. She did not say how much they suggested.<\/p>\n Warrens said Friday he heard from ES&S officials, who reported they were \u201cvery close to sending us two proposals, both of which I believe will save the county money.\u201d<\/p>\n Some counties need to use ES&S technicians for helping with programming and coding the machines, Poucher said, especially those with only one or two staff members. But Wake County needs a different solution, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking for what is best for the taxpayers of Wake County and the voters of Wake County,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The County Commission meets at 2 p.m. Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wake County\u2019s Elections Director wants to certify local technicians to manage voting machines, saving the county money. But the company in charge of doing so asked for more than $15,000 plus 60 percent of the annual contract \u2013 terms the county attorney is now negotiating. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24025,"featured_media":10312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[446,34,15],"tags":[475,474],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nAlthough Wake County voters use paper ballots, the county has 248 voting machines:<\/p>\n
\n-Automark machines for those with disabilities
\n-Three high-speed ballot counting machines<\/center>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/voting_machines-300x199.jpg\" "\\"voting_machines\\"")
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