Halifax Regional Municipality is looking for a back-up company to handle telephone and electronic voting in the next municipal election after fears that the company that holds the contract is financially unstable. A tender posted online Thursday seeks bids from companies that could administer telephone and e-voting for October’s 2016 municipal and school board elections, and any special elections after that till April 2020. But the winning bidder’s services will only be needed if the company that already has a standing offer — Dartmouth-based Intelivote — is unable to do the job.
“It’s not at all saying we have given up on Intelivote. In fact they are still our prime, preferred vendor, and we are hopeful that that they will be able to do the election,” municipal spokesperson Brendan Elliott said Thursday.
“But we want to be able to make sure that we’ve got all our bases covered, and for a contract as critical as this one, we want to be able to have someone in place in case, for whatever reason, Intelivote isn’t in a position to be able to hold an e-vote election in the fall.”
Council voted in December to defer decisions on taking $2.2 million out of its reserve budgets for e-voting, and whether it would even use e-voting in the next election after the municipality learned that Intelivote was in fiscal hot water.
Full Article: Financial fears prompt Halifax to seek back-up for electronic voting in 2016 elections | Metro News.