INDIANAPOLIS -- Marion County election officials Thursday warned a voting-equipment company that they won't accept any more mistakes after it used unapproved software to handle vote information in last fall's elections.

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Election Officials: Trust Was Breached

Five Indiana counties recently discovered that Election Systems & Software, which is contracted by 41 Indiana counties, installed voting software that was not approved by the state. The software transfers voting information from memory cards to a central server, RTV6's Norman Cox reported.

At an election board meeting Thursday at the City-County Building, Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler warned ES&S Vice President Ken Carbullido that the company cannot make another error.

"We cannot afford to announce any more mistakes to our voters. We just can't," Sadler said.

The election board said outside auditors will ensure that ES&S provides proper service for May 4's primary. ES&S has agreed to pay for the audit.

The Omaha, Neb.-based company said it found the error earlier this year and replaced the unapproved software with an older version that Indiana has approved.

Before Thursday's meeting, Sadler accused ES&S of covering up the mistake, saying she wouldn't have learned of the error if the company's local representative, Wendy Orange, hadn't informed her against the company's instructions.

At the meeting, Carbullido said no one was ordered to lie, and that the company didn't say anything when it discovered the error because it was focused on fixing it.

"We really didn't decide not to tell customers or to tell customers," Carbullido told the board. "We just knew that we had to get all the right software on the systems."

Carbullido (pictured, left) said the unapproved software used in November couldn't have affected the vote count because it doesn't tabulate numbers. Rather, it only transfers data from one place to another, he said.

ES&S officials earlier issued a statement saying the company regrets the error.

For Johnson, Wayne and Henry counties, the incident marked the second time unapproved equipment has been installed by ES&S.

Those counties, along with Vanderburgh County, still have one component of their voting systems that has not been approved by the state. However, the four counties obtained permission from the state to use the unapproved systems for the May 4 primary. ES&S must put up a $10 million bond to make sure the unapproved system works, said Kristi Robertson, co-director of the Indiana Election Division.

All software for electronic voting machines must be checked for accuracy and reliability by an independent testing agency. It then must be approved by the State Election Commission.