DIEBOLD MACHINES TO UH, WITHDRAW FROM CALIFORNIA?

From the AP:

California should ban the use of 15,000 touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems from the Nov. 2 general election, an advisory panel to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recommended Thursday.

By an 8-0 vote, the state's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended that Shelley cease the use of the machines, saying that Texas-based Diebold has performed poorly in California and its machines malfunctioned in the state's March 2 primary election, turning away many voters in San Diego County.

The recommendation affects 15,000 Diebold touch-screen machines in San Diego, Solano, Kern and San Joaquin counties.

Thousands more machines made by Diebold and other manufacturers in 10 other counties are unaffected, although the panel is to make a recommendation regarding them next Wednesday.

The panel's decision has national implications for the voting machine maker, coming as states plan to spend billions of dollars to upgrade election equipment in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida.

If Shelley follows through with the recommendation, the affected counties would have to revert to paper ballots, specifically those marked by filling in ovals which are read by electronic scanners. The prospects of starting anew just months before a presidential election prompted outcries from more than a dozen voting officials statewide who would have to buy voting booths, ballot boxes, marking supplies, card readers and more scanners while retraining poll workers.

"We sold all of our voting booths to Los Angeles County. We sold our surplus card readers to smaller counties," said Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend, who estimated costs of reverting to paper at $2.5 million.

Diebold was disappointed and disagreed with the recommendation, said its marketing director, Mark Radke. The company will quickly write a report outlining its objections to Shelley, who has until April 30 to make a final decision.

Well, if the timeline to make a decisions was picked to be April 30th, that timeline must have been made with respect to the ability for counties to comply in time to be ready for the November elections, right?

Good to see that the Golden State may be back on the paper trail anytime now. The Bush administration is now officially out of ideas for how to be competitive in California.