- Associated Press - Thursday, October 4, 2018

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - When Louisiana shopped for new voting machines, the state told vendors it wanted to double the number of machines it uses for elections, a decision that helped drive up the cost of the contract proposals to a higher-than-expected price tag.

The secretary of state’s office solicited bids to buy or lease nearly 20,000 voting machines - to replace the 10,000 early voting and Election Day machines it currently has.

The agency described wanting to replace voting machines bought in 2005 with smaller devices, improved technology, bolstered security and a paper record of votes. But it didn’t publicize the effort also could double the inventory of machines.

Contract winner Dominion Voting Systems estimates the work will cost between $89 million and $95 million for equipment, software, warranties and maintenance.

That projection exceeded prior estimates, topped the money Louisiana has set aside for the work by at least $50 million and raised concerns from lawmakers who don’t know how the state will pay for it.

But the price tag could fall, likely fall significantly, if the state doesn’t double the number of voting machines. Inventory size is one of many points of contention raised by a losing bidder for the work that has filed a formal protest of the contract award.

Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin said his office “felt like we needed to grow the number” of machines because the current large Election Day machines will be replaced with smaller screens requiring voters to scroll through multiple pages of selections.

“It’s going to take voters a little bit more time,” he said. “More machines will be necessary.”

Ardoin, a Republican in the job since May who is running to keep the position in a November election, said he’ll determine the number of machines when he negotiates the contract terms.

“I’m just not certain about the 20,000. We were trying to be proactive and go high, and then we can negotiate down,” he said. “This is the sticker price. We can negotiate from there. Nobody buys a car on sticker price anymore.”

Contract negotiations are stalled while a protest filed by Election Systems and Software is under review by the state procurement office. The company, one of two unsuccessful bidders for the work, said the request for proposals for 20,000 machines makes no sense with more people early voting and skewed bid reviews to focus more heavily on cost.

“This amount of capacity would support a voting population of more than twice the state of Louisiana, and this is assuming every single Louisiana voter showed up to the polls on Election Day,” Tom Clark, a lawyer representing Election Systems and Software, said in protest filings.

Ardoin’s office said Dominion was the low bidder for the voting machine replacement. Election Systems and Software and the other losing bidder, Hart InterCivic, said they offered alternative proposals that were millions of dollars cheaper, but weren’t scored in the bid review.

Lawyers and other experts are examining the protest claims. Any decision by the procurement office leader on whether to uphold or overturn the contract award can be appealed.

Election Systems and Software has lodged a long list of complaints about the contractor selection process, claiming it was bungled by Ardoin, his office and the team that evaluated the bids. Ardoin said the process was fair and his office worked to secure the best voting technology. Dominion said its competitor simply wants another chance at winning the contract, without offering substantive reasons for throwing out the contract award.

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Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte

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