A question regarding HAVA money - just curious

[tbyg52]

I'm not asking anyone to do my Googling for me, just asking in case anyone knows off the top of his/her head.

Our Commissioners' Court here in Fort Bend County is claiming that if they were to sell our eSlates at 50 cents on the dollar as our (former) election chief suggested, they would have to turn the money back to the federal government, since it came from HAVA.

True? False? No one knows so I should research it myself?

[Fly by night]

1. PLEASE send me contact info on your election official.

We are trying to move to opscan statewide in Tennessee and thought that our DREs have no resale value at all. If your local election official has a market for your DREs that would return 50 cents on the dollar, that would help us mightily to make the transformation here in Tennessee.

I want to call your election official right away to see if she/he has a firm offer for the resale of your equipment. Thanks kindly.

[tbyg52]

3. Well, he's not there anymore....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=497672&mesg_id=497682

I don't know where he got the 50-cent figure - I just remembered reading it in a story about the flap. I'll try to find it again, as fast as I can on my dialup. I'm just about ready to spring for broadband, much as it pains me. If I could only convince my husband to abandon the landline, that'd save part of the cost....

[tbyg52]

4. OK, found the story

http://www.fortbendnow.com/pages/full_story?article-Perez-Wants-To-Scrap-Computer-Voting-Machines-In-Favor-Of-Paper-Ballots%20=&page_label=home&id=15668&widget=push&instance=home_news_bullets&open=&

Sorry, the story just says "They conceivably could bring '50 cents on the dollar.'" (The 50 cents being the Perez quote.) No idea if he'd been asking around or if he just pulled the figure out of his hat.

He was just trying to make the point, I think, that we should abandon the things as quickly as possible for whatever they would bring.

Then, of course, our Commissioners' Court abandoned *him* (and us).

[AtLiberty]

2. Seems like the county should sue Hart...

...for the full amount of the cost plus seek massive punitive damages for selling them junk and compromising the electoral process.