Dear committee member:
We have reviewed your RFP Evaluation report and we are appalled.
1. The committee has failed in its duty to report these facts about the HART InterCivic proposal:
o It does not comply with the RFP requirements2. The committee wrongly recommends changing the RFP terms after the bids have been submitted. This stinks to high heaven. The county will be accused of rigging the bid.
o It violates Colorado law
The RFP is for a lease not a sale, and there is no mention that lease costs would be credited against a future purchase.
Disclosure of these two deal sweeteners would likely have attracted additional bid responders and cost the county less. Adopting them would substantially rig any future purchase in HART's favor.
3. Details in the report are wrong (hopefully innocently). It is absolutely not true, for example, that the HART system is “the most universally accessible certified system available at this time”. AutoMark is more accessible, is certified nationally and by most states (not Colorado), and is available at this time.
AutoMark was suspiciously denied Colorado certification. HART’s equipment suffers from the identical problem used by the Secretary of State to deny AutoMark certification.
Something fishy is going on in the Secretary of State's office.
We worked long and hard to share with you the benefit of our work on this decision. We do not find that you have responded to our written concerns. March 13, March 20, and March 22, 2006. These letters are available at CAMBER/lease_RFP
We ask that you revise the conclusions in your report.
1. Expose the difficult and unanswered problems that we have brought to your attention.The people of Boulder County do not want to have their elections contaminated by invisible digital ballots. Each incorrect digital ballot disenfranchises two voters – the voter whose votes are wrongly counted and the voter whose votes are zeroed out by the incorrect digital ballot.
2. Keep the terms and conditions of the RFP as it was presented to vendors, or issue a new RFP so that all vendors can compete.
3. Correct erroneous and misleading statements in the report.
4. Ask the Secretary of State to expedite reconsideration of the AutoMark and Vote-PAD.
Al Kolwicz
CAMBER – Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
