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Sequoia Voting Systems contract with San Francisco needs added section to ensure transparency
by Brent Turner, Open Voting Consortium
February 13, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO -- Several groups concerned about the integrity of our voting systems are insisting that contract language be inserted into San Francisco's pending 12.5 million dollar contract with Sequoia Voting Systems that will enable fully public scrutiny of the voting technology. Alan Dechert of the Open Voting Consortium will be available to answer questions at 12:30 PM Wednesday 14 FEB at City Hall ( on the steps ) before the budget and finance meeting ( at 1:00 PM ).

"We insist that the Contract Provision for Public Disclosure [1] drafted by Open Voting Consortium be included in the contract. Otherwise, the contract should be rejected by the Board of Supervisors," said Alan Dechert, President of Open Voting Consortium. Secret software and secret processes have no place in the voting system. This practice must end and we feel the place and time for this to happen is here and now."

DemocracyAction, Democracy For America, California Election Protection and the San Francisco Election Integrity League will be there in support of the Open Voting Consortium.

Open Voting Consortium is a California nonprofit corporation that promotes the use of voting technology that is fully open to public scrutiny.

[1] Form Contract Provision for Public Disclosure

Section ___: Public Disclosure of Technology Required.

Prior to the delivery of any products, Vendor shall submit proof of Public Disclosure in a form satisfactory to the City. At a minimum, Vendor will affirm that it (1) has entered into an agreement for a term concurrent with this agreement with the California Secretary of State, the Open Voting Consortium, or other similar third party for public access to the technology used in the subject products; (2) that the disclosure is freely available through that third party to the public at no cost; (3) the disclosure contains complete documentation, including software source code of all hardware and software components created or modified for the voting application; (4) the disclosure of commercial off the shelf (COTS) components by manufacturer, model, and revision; and (5) the disclosure of all product data sheets, manuals, and other publicly available documentation for unmodified COTS components.

Vendor is not required to provide hardware to the public for testing purposes; however, the technology disclosure package shall be sufficiently detailed such that competent engineers with the correct tools can fully recreate the hardware and software systems.

In the event that the Public Disclosure Service becomes unavailable from Vendor's provider, Vendor shall provide City proof, within 30 days of unavailability that Vendor has contracted with another third party public disclosure service provider for disclosure as provided herein for the remainder of the term of this agreement.

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