Louisiana’s chief elections officer pledges to continue the state’s “reputation of election integrity” as the process begins to replace approximately 10,000 voting machines.
Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin told the Louisiana Record that the Office of State Procurement’s issuance of the request for proposal (RFP) will help Louisiana seek “to bring the most secure and transparent voting technology to our state.”
“I am excited to begin the RFP process,” Ardoin said. “While the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release of this RFP, we are excited to begin the process of bringing the best voting technology to Louisiana and continuing our tradition of delivering safe, secure, accurate and transparent elections.”
Kyle Ardoin, Secretary of State
| LA.gov
The Office of State Procurement (OSP) ensures that Louisiana’s “contracting and purchasing activities are conducted legally, fairly and efficiently,” the Office of State Procurement says on its website. “OSP also manages the purchasing of equipment, goods, supplies and operating services needed by state agencies. The office researches, develops and issues both statewide and agency-specific contracts and competitively bids items not covered under annual contracts.”
Louisiana currently uses direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines, the request for proposal document says. The state contracts with election technology supplier Dominion Voting Systems, a business that has come under scrutiny over allegations of election fraud during the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Dominion Voting Systems recently filed a defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s attorney, because of claims Giuliani made against the company after the November presidential election.
“Although he was unwilling to make false election fraud claims about Dominion and its voting machines in a court of law because he knew those allegations are false, he and his allies manufactured and disseminated the ‘Big Lie,’ which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election,” the Dominion v. Giuliani Complaint says.
Dominion Voting Systems says it “is committed to ensuring the security of elections.”
“We utilize both voluntary and compulsory testing on every one of our systems as part of company and federal/state certification processes,” the website says. “Our Democracy Suite products have been tested and certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in accordance with federal Voluntary Voting Systems (VVSG).”
Dominion Voting Systems' AVC Advantage machines are in Louisiana’s 64 parishes, totaling 9,542 statewide, according to the Request for Proposal document.
“For early voting, Louisiana conducts elections on ImageCast X (ICX) touchscreen voting machines leased from Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., with audio voting in every polling place. Current inventory totals seven hundred eighty (780) machines used statewide for early voting,” according to the RFP.
Delay of the Request for Proposal for acquisition of a new voting system was caused by the pandemic's delaying the spring elections until summer and “the strain of multiple tropical storms and hurricanes during the presidential election,” Ardoin said in "Comments on the Release of the Request for Proposal.”
“We are exhaustively following all state purchasing laws,” Ardoin said in the video. “Our current voting machines have long-served the voters of Louisiana without major incident, but the lifespan of the machines is near their end. Thus it is prudent to procure new voting equipment at this time.”