In recent press materials about its role in this fall’s elections, ES&S, the mainland company that sold a $10 million vote-counting system to Hawai’i, conveniently forgot to mention that the new system had some bugs when it debuted in 1998.
In recent press materials about its role in this fall’s elections, ES&S, the mainland company that sold a $10 million vote-counting system to Hawai’i, conveniently forgot to mention that the new system had some bugs when it debuted in 1998.
Granted, the problems with and complaints about the automated ballot counting were relatively few. They also were expected, considering the state was switching from a comparatively antiquated punchcard system—not to mention the fact that computerization is far from foolproof.
Nevertheless, Kaua’i County and the rest of the state are entitled to a virtually bump-free ride from the speedier, less expensive vote tabulations that ES&S trumpets. The difficulties of ’98 should be a thing of the past this year.
