Committee debates Sequoia voting contract after hours of public testimony, forwards measure to full Board

The Budget and Finance Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors spent the bulk of its Dec. 5, 2007 meeting on a proposed four-year contract with Sequoia Voting Systems for new voting equipment and associated services. The clerk read the item as a roughly $12,660,000 contract; department and budget staff described contractual changes, new requirements for a full demonstration by Feb. 12 and a $650,000 withholding tied to that demonstration.

Why it matters: The contract would supply paper-based, machine-tallied systems used to count ballots citywide, and speakers — including technologists, election officials and advocacy groups — clashed over whether the proposed safeguards are sufficient for ranked-choice voting (RCV) and election security.

Mr. Arndt, representing the Department of Elections, said the amended contract removes certain voter-verified paper-audit-trail items and some battery backup packs and adjusts software-maintenance fees; he described about $750,000 in net changes from earlier pricing miscalculations and said the contract includes a requirement for Sequoia to furnish source code to a third-party reviewer and to respond to draft reports before a final review is issued. He also said Sequoia would follow any future state rules governing disclosure and that the company would be required to adapt if another certified, disclosed-source vendor appeared during the contract term.

Budget analyst Deborah…