Friday January 12, 3:33 pm Eastern Time
Forbes.com
Unisys' Phony Voter Solution
By Dan Ackman
In Russia there is a joke about two businessmen who meet on a street corner in Moscow and start negotiating a deal for potatoes. The men haggle, argue and nearly come to blows before, finally, reaching an agreement. Then one man goes off to borrow the money, and the other goes to find some potatoes.
This situation is not so different from Unisys' (NYSE: UIS - news) much-publicized announcement that it has ``teamed up'' with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) and Dell Computer (Nasdaq: DELL - news) to provide ``end-to-end'' solutions to the voting technology fiasco revealed by recent events in Florida. Two problems, though: Microsoft denies the partnership, and Unisys has no solution. Unisys is, however, willing to invent one once it finds a customer.
When Unisys says it's ``offering a fully integrated approach to election management,'' it does not mean it has something specific to offer. This point was made clear in an interview with Kevin Curry, a Unisys vice president. The systems integration company based in Blue Bell, Pa., has some experience in creating elections systems overseas. But it has no product or prototype that is currently available for sale in the U.S.
What technology will Unisys offer? That depends, Curry says, on a number of factors, including as-yet undetermined standards to be set by the federal government. Barry French, a spokesman for Dell, says, ``Right now we are looking at a whole bunch of options.'' Whatever ``solution'' they ultimately provide will, however, certainly be ``end-to-end,'' encompassing ``more accurate registration, identification, voting, tabulation and reporting systems,'' Unisys says. Unless, of course, the customers, whoever they may be, prefer something at one end or the other.
The lack of substance to the partnership's plans did not prevent Unisys from announcing it yesterday. That's hardly surprising--companies hype their entry into new markets all the time. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, publicized the story, based on an ``exclusive interview'' with Lawrence Weinbach, Unisys' chief executive, before the official announcement, as if the partnership actually had something to sell.
Microsoft, for its part, denies it is on the team. ``Unisys' press release was a little misleading in that it mentions a partnership when there really is none,'' says Keith Hudson, a company spokesman. Microsoft will be providing software--in the same way it provides software for anyone else who wants to buy its software.
Florida or no Florida, chad or no chad, the big problem in the election business isn't technology; it's politics. There are about 3,600 counties in the U.S., according to Larry Ensinger, an executive of Global Election Systems, based in Vancouver, Canada. Each county tends to be responsible for its own elections, including the choice of voting technology, which now runs the gamut from paper and pencil, to punch cards, to electronic systems. Electronic systems account for just 9% of the market, Unisys says. Some counties, especially in New England and in Michigan and Wisconsin, allow each town or township local control over balloting.
The market is so fragmented that Dell's French says he has no handle on its size. Weinbach, however, told the Journal the market will soon be ``multibillion.'' But the only way that can happen is if practically every U.S. county replaces its voting systems all at once.
The Florida mess might light some fires under local officials. So, too, might lawsuits, some of which have already been filed, challenging the constitutionality of state voting systems based on comments in the United States Supreme Court ruling that ended the recounts in Florida.
But the difficulty for companies in the election business has been the long process of hawking voting machines or systems from county to county. Companies like Global Election and Hayward, Calif.-based Sequoia Pacific Systems, which do sell voting machines, say the greatest obstacle has been the indifference of county officials. They tend to believe that their systems are good enough--and indeed they seem to be, except in extraordinarily close elections such as Florida. Most companies who have taken a look at this market have gone away, turned off by the lengthy selling process, says Ensinger.
Unisys says there are no major players in the market and it believes that its experience supplying systems in Brazil and Costa Rica, and its association with major-league partners, will give it the credibility it needs to dominate the market. It may be right. But so far, it's not even in the game.
See:
High-Tech Won't Solve Election Woes
The Billion Dollar Business Of Balloting
Fix-The-Vote Contest Winners
The Politics Of Voting
Ten O'Clock Tech: Computers In The Voting Booth
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