Alameda County

Dec 28: The General Services Page says: "BID CLOSED - Award Pending". No public announcement has been made. It is rumored that the Diebold TSx was selected and that no announcement will be made until certification issues are resolved. Any award must be voted on by the Board of Supervisors. Stay tuned for further developments ...

Oct 28: Alameda County releases the Addendum to the RFP which answers bidders' questions and, in response to public pressure, makes major changes in the RFP including strengthening the requirements in the areas of security, IRV, and AVVPAT, and changing the scoring criteria significantly. An award is due December 13. The RFP (143 pages) and RFP Addendum (41 pages) are available at: RFP and Addendum

Sep 30: Due to Diebold certification application being rejected by the Secretary of State, Alameda County issues a RFP for a new voting system, to be selected through a competitive bid process. An Addendum is scheduled to be released Oct. 21 to answer any questions which arise from bidders.

June 28:
On June 28, the Board of Supervisors held a public hearing and voted to begin negotiating with Diebold to replace the current system of voting machines. However, any contract must come back before the Board of Supervisors before being signed. Click here for a link to the audio and a summary.

Report by Jerry Berkman on Diebold delivered to the Alameda Board of Supervisors the day before the hearing.

May 17
At the May 17 meeting of the Alameda County, CA, Board of Supervisors meeting, item 14 on the Agenda was:

Registrar of Voters - Authorize the Registrar to negotiate a contract with Diebold Election Systems Inc. (Principal: Thomas W. Swidarski; Location: McKinney, Texas) for an upgrade to its voting equipment that includes a voter verified paper audit trail printer for use in the November 8, 2005 Consolidated District Election - CAO Recommends: Approve
Currently Alameda county uses Diebold DREs (Direct Recording Electronic voting machines) with no paper trail. Local activists turned out in force to oppose this item and request a hearing with Diebold present. It helped that the proposed Diebold upgrade was not yet Federally qualified and is not yet California certified. The Board listened and deferred the item and is going to have a hearing with the public and Diebold most likely on June 17th.