He added, "If a town is going to use a voting machine it's up to that town to set up the contract with LHS to establish the voting machine in that town and to repair it according to what's required to run an election. And we certainly haven't received any complaints that LHS has failed in it's obligation to see that these voting machines are operating properly".
How could a problem be detected if the town officials are not even making reports and the state has no sense that anything is going wrong or in need of oversight? Consider this exchange with Kennedy:
Smith: What about security?
Kennedy: There is also security protocols," he explained. There are locks and seals that go on these machines during the day and actually our office conducted inspections throughout election day to insure that the seals were properly on the machines".
Smith: But what if say a memory card were to fail during the election and LHS were to come in and put in a different one?
Kennedy: That's not what's done in the State of New Hampshire. Actually by state and federal law we are required to retain the actual memory card that's used in the election. So to interchange a memory card I think would be odd.
Smith: I mean to replace it so the machine could be used.
Kennedy: I don't know of any circumstance that that's occurred here.
Smith: What about during set up if the card is tested and fails and so LHS is able to just send out a new one.
How could a problem be detected if the town officials are not even making reports and the state has no sense that anything is going wrong or in need of oversight? Consider this exchange with Kennedy:
Smith: What about security?
Kennedy: There is also security protocols," he explained. There are locks and seals that go on these machines during the day and actually our office conducted inspections throughout election day to insure that the seals were properly on the machines".
Kennedy: That's not what's done in the State of New Hampshire. Actually by state and federal law we are required to retain the actual memory card that's used in the election. So to interchange a memory card I think would be odd.
Smith: I mean to replace it so the machine could be used.
Kennedy: I don't know of any circumstance that that's occurred here.
Smith: What about during set up if the card is tested and fails and so LHS is able to just send out a new one.
Kennedy: I'm not sure they send out a new memory card or that they fix the one they have or whatever is done. Certainly if the machine's not working how it should be working according to the test procedures that are laid out before the election commences that machine won't be used.
We tried to contact the Secretary of the State for further information but their phone was busy all afternoon on Friday. My exchange with Linda Hartson of Exeter reveals that in their region at least, a mid election memory card failure could very well result in a switch being made by LHS.
I asked her, Let's say the back up would fail what would they do?
Hartson: LHS provides back up memory cards but if a memory card failure were to occur during the election the vendor would arrive with another memory card. This is from LHS that I'm getting them and they are providing the back up. If they bring you another one you just put it in. there's no problem.
Smith: And it wouldn't be a problem if that happened during the election?
Hartson: Nope nope nope nope. Because you could run the report off the machine and then just put in the new memory card and it would keep on going. That's my understanding.
Smith: Right. So Linda Hartson, LHS trained our people, (in Connecticut) did they train you guys too?
Originally yes.
For further details on Connecticut's struggles with LHS Associates search Talk Nation Radio at http://www.talknationradio.org or try Bradblog.com and ctnewsjunkie.com
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