Cook County (Chicago) inches away from Diebold optiscan

Chicago (which is part of Cook County) has its elections administered by the Chicago Board of Elections, headed by Lance Gough.

Cook County has its own board of elections but it's for suburban Cook County only, and not Chicago. It's headed by David Orr. David Orr was nice enough to give Bev a heads up because she may think the two very separate jurisditions are one and the same.

I hope she avoids conflating the two.

The two departments are run entirely separately.

he says the contract for Cook County and Chicago combined is $45 million. But you can't tell for sure whether he's referring to both when he says there going to buy in a month.

Most of the video he's talking about both of them, 2.7 million voters, etc, referring to both. The way I interpret the David Orr letter is that maybe Chicago is already decided on Diebold, but Orr is not committing the County to it in public. They have to get bids to make a recommendation to buy. Those should be public.

I just did a search and can't find anything in the news at all about who bid on the contract or even that its being discussed right now. I found something from Ballot Integrity from a year and a half ago that says they plan to buy new systems, but is there anything more recent?

It's a violation if they haven't publicly noticed every step.

the video is here: http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/CookCounty45m.mpg

I'm trying to find who he is. If I had some names I could run some Google Image searches. I don't know the area, don't even know where to start.

I'm guessing that this is the potential transaction(s) being referred to, and also guessing that there is confusion as to whether or not this is one deal or two. It appears that it's a joint RFP with potentially two contracts.

The RFP dated June 2004 is online at http://66.107.4.19/request_for_proposal_new_voting_eq.htm
and quoting from page 4 of file 1, (emphasis is mine)

"This Request for Proposals (“RFP”) is being jointly issued by the County Clerk of Cook County, Illinois (the “County” or the “Clerk”) and the Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago (the “City” or the “Board”). (The County and the City are referred to jointly as the “Jurisdictions.”) The Jurisdictions are the legal entities responsible for conducting elections in Cook County, with the Board administering the elections held within the city of Chicago, and the Clerk having responsibility for elections held in the remainder of the County. Together, they operate 5,100-plus precincts on any Countywide Election Day. The purpose of this RFP is to invite proposals for an election machinery system for the Jurisdictions that will fulfill the requirements set forth herein. The jurisdictions are separate governmental entities. Subject to the approval of the governing bodies of each of the Jurisdictions, the successful proposer(s) may have an opportunity to negotiate a contract with one or both Jurisdictions. The decision by one or both of the Jurisdictions to recommend that its governing body authorize a contract with a particular proposer does not create any contract entitlement."

Red Illinois baby!!! :eyes:

If they get Cook Co (Chicago)... I wouldn't put it past them.