Washoe County registrar of voters to review operations for vote counting system
Reno, Nevada. September 18, 2007. At their September 18th Board meeting, Commissioners agreed to reconvene the Elections Task Force to review Washoe County’s operations and security features currently in use for its voting systems. A facilitator will be hired for $2500 to assist the citizen-based Election Task Force in conducting the meetings and final report writing.
In 1999, an Elections Task Force was formed to review Washoe County operations following the elections held in 1998. After meeting for four months, the task force made 19 recommendations for improvements, of which 15 were implemented by the Registrar prior to the 2000 elections and the other 4 implemented prior the elections in 2002.
"The systems and procedures to be reviewed by this citizen-based Task Force are those designed to protect the integrity of elections conducted in Washoe County," said Registrar of Voters Dan Burk. "In light of the recent decision by the California Secretary of State to suspend use of all touch-screen technology for their 2008 elections, we felt it necessary to review the operating procedures for the reliability, security and accuracy of our own similar systems."
Voting systems are certified for use in Nevada by the Office of the Nevada Secretary of State. Currently, Sequoia software and hardware systems are used by all counties in Nevada and are the only voting programs currently certified by the Secretary of State for use in Nevada.