(now available in orange) Brian has the press release, but WIRED brings us a few more intriguing details about the machines ES&S sold a group of counties before they were certified. First of all, there were 1,000 machines sold to San Francisco, Marin, Solano, Merced and Marin. The law allows the state to fine the company up to $10,000 per uncertified system ($9.72m) and refund the counties all or part of the purchase price, which would amount to about $5 million. Plus, the state could ban ES&S from doing any business with the state. That could effect up to 14 more counties, including LA County.
It turns out that ES&S may have been faking certification stickers on the back of the machines, the image is from the WIRED article.
The AutoMark A100 was certified for use in California in August 2005. However, in 2006, ES&S, by its own admission, sold 1,000 units of its subsequent AutoMark model -- the A200 version -- to five CA counties months before the system passed federal qualification testing in August 2006. Voting machines generally undergo two stages of testing and certification, first by independent testing labs overseen by the federal government and then by the states themselves. But according to secretary of state spokeswoman Nicole Winger ES&S still has not submitted the A200 system to the state to examine and certify.
Winger also says that the A200 machines had stickers on them (see photo below) that identified them as having passed federal qualification testing, when they hadn't yet passed that testing. Winger says that the qualification stickers that were placed on the A200 machines were the stickers that are supposed to apply only to A100 machines. Winger says it's possible that the stickers were applied in error. But if ES&S deliberately placed the stickers on the machines it could suggest a deliberate attempt on the part of the company to deceive California election officials.
"We are in the early stages of learning about the facts," Winger told me. "We don't know who would have applied the A100 stickers to uncertified equipment."
Winger said the differences between the A100 and A200 systems are significant and easily identified just through visual inspection (see the photos above at right). The size of the motherboard and the types of wiring inside the machines are just two examples of the differences.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen will be addressing this and other questions at the hearing on September 20th. I feel confident in saying that if her predecessor had been in office this would have never been uncovered. Indeed, this happened under his watch.
Brian has the press release, but 
