Diebold among winning bidders for N.C. voting equipment sales

The State Board of Elections approved three companies Thursday to sell voting machines to all 100 counties in time for next year's elections, including a firm that complained earlier it couldn't comply with all the rules for computer software.

Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems all met minimum technical and administrative standards to sell in North Carolina, as determined by a panel of computer and election experts.

The standards were developed under a state law approved this year after more than 4,400 electronic ballots were lost in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months.

Although Sequoia must wait for approval from a special procurement board due to a clerical delay, all three will be allowed to sell both optical ballot scanning and electronic recording machines to county election boards, which administer elections in North Carolina