SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Sacramento County officials are eager to end bid submissions for touchscreen kiosk voting machines, so they can be installed and ready for the Nov. 7 presidential election.
"Timing will be short to get a successful bidder, and it will have to be done right to have a system in place by November," Voting Registrar Jill LaVine told the Sacramento Bee.
Touch-screen machines would help the county to comply with new state and federal election criteria passed after the 2000 presidential election contest in Florida discredited punch-card voting machines.
Sacramento County budgeted $11 million for the new machines, but officials indicated it might not be enough.
Voters in 14 California counties used touchscreen machines during last month’s primary election. New legislation requires that all voters, including those with disabilities, must be able to vote without assistance by 2005.
In March, disability advocates sued four of California's largest counties—Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Barbara—to force them to install touch-screen voting machines by the upcoming general election
