Could be Banned from Doing Business in State for Five Years After Missing Recertification Deadline Prior to 2006 Election...

Brad Friedman Byon 4/4/2008, 3:19pm PT

Yet another voting machine company --- a small-ish one, MicroVote --- may soon be out of business, or so it claims in response to a court decision in Indiana, where the judge has had the temerity to actually bother enforcing the rule of law and holding a voting machine company to an actual standard. Go figure. Of course, we're broken hearted about it...

A judge has thrown out a voting-machine company's appeal of a 360-thousand-dollar fine imposed by the secretary of state. The Marion Circuit Court says MicroVote missed a filing deadline to challenge a fine for selling uncertified equipment. The Indianapolis company didn't get its machines recertified until a week before the 2006 primary. "We just can't tolerate vendors that have this lackadaisical attitude toward proper certification and say, 'Well, nothing bad really happened, so there's no reason to go after us like this,'" says Deputy Secretary of State Matt Tusing. "We simply enforce the laws that are currently in place." MicroVote attorney John R. Price argues the decertification wasn't MicroVote's fault. In 2005, Congress required all voting-machine manufacturers to be recertified. An administrative law judge recommended last week that MicroVote be banned from selling machines in Indiana for five years. The Indiana Election Commission must decide whether to follow that recommendation, which Price warns would put the company out of business. MicroVote supplies voting machines to 49 of Indiana's 92 counties.

Not sure which law they refer to when they say that "In 2005, Congress required all voting-machine manufacturers to be recertified." Are they talking about the Indiana state legislature? Or did the reporter just get it wrong here? Color us clueless, but too busy to dig deeper for the moment. Your help comments are welcome if you know what the hell they're referring to there.

Back in April of 2006, as John Gideon had been covering the impending Train Wreck for The BRAD BLOG, he noted that the state had "found that MicroVote had installed software uncertified by both the fed and the state in voting machines of 47 Indiana counties."

He further reported that counties found themselves in the unenviable position of having to choose between using uncertified software or otherwise ignoring both federal and state laws requiring a voting device for those with disabilities. "Some counties are choosing to ignore state law and use the uncertified machines," Gideon wrote at the time.



