Jaco wins large contract for optical scan voting machines<br />Newsday<br />4/8/2008<br /><br />Jaco wins large contract for optical scan voting machines<br /><br />BY JAMES BERNSTEIN<br /><br />Jaco Electronics Corp., a relatively small components distributor, said<br />Tuesday it won its largest-ever single award -- a contract to manufacture<br />approximately 4,500 optical scan voting machines for use in New York State.<br /><br />Hauppauge-based Jaco said in an announcement before markets opened that it<br />will add 40 to 50 people to its 120-member Long Island workforce as a result<br />of the contract. Jaco employes a total of 220.<br /><br />An industry source said the contract is worth between $18 million and $20<br />million.<br /><br />The company's stock, which has declined in recent years, soared on the news.<br />In early trading Tuesday, it was up 56 cents or 51 percent to $1.65.<br /><br />Jaco, which has been making a different-type of voting machines for the last<br />six or so years, said it won the latest contract from Dominion Voting<br />Systems, a designer of optical scanning machines, in Toronto.<br /><br />Dominion is a subcontractor to California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, a<br />100-year-old provider of voting systems. Sequoia has a contract with New<br />York State to produce the optical scan machines.<br /><br />Michelle Shafer, a Sequoia spokeswoman, said the company has contracts with<br />52 counties in New York State.<br /><br />"It's a big win," Joel Girsky, a Jaco founder and the company's chairman and<br />chief executive, said in an interview. He said the contract was the<br />largest-ever single award the company has won in its 47-year history. Jaco's<br />annual sales are around $250 million annually.<br /><br />Girsky said the optical scan voting machines will be built at the company's<br />Hauppauge facility. He said they are expected to be completed this summer,<br />in time for the presidential elections in November.<br /><br />The 4,500 optical scan voting machines are being built for persons with<br />physical handicaps, Girsky said. New York State now requires voting places<br />to have at least one machine designated for the handicapped. Girsky said<br />that he expects further orders next year for more machines that will be for<br />use by handicapped and non-handicapped voters.<br /><br />With the optical scan machines, voters fill out a paper ballot and place it<br />into the machines, which scans the ballot electronically.<br /><br />Voting machines have been a focus of controversy since the 2000 elections,<br />when results were challenged in Florida, a re-count was held, and the state<br />was given to Republican George W. Bush over his Democratic opponent, then<br />Vice President Al Gore.<br /><br />Voting machines manufactured by Diebold Inc. of Ohio were also the focus of<br />controversy in 2003, when the company's chief executive, Walden O'Dell, told<br />Republicans in a fund-raiser in Columbus that he was "committed to helping<br />Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Bush in '04<br />defeated Democrat John Kerry.<br /><br />Since, many states have been opting for electronic scanning machines. New<br />York has been among the last of the states to select the scanners. The 2002<br />Help America Vote Act requires at least one voting machine be accessible to<br />handicapped persons in each polling place.<br /><br />Jaco has been involved in manufacturing scanning machines for about six<br />years. In 2005, it won a contract from Sequoia to make 3,000 15-inch,<br />flat-panel voting display machines. Girsky said, however, that such<br />display-type machines have largely gone out of use after questions were<br />raised about their security.<br /><br />The voting machine business is cylical, Girsky said. Greater interest in the<br />machines usually comes during presidential election years.<br /><br />Jaco has struggled in recent years as the electronic distribution industry<br />has contracted, and much of the business is now in Asia.<br /><br />In February, Jaco said it earned $39,000 in its fiscal second quarter,<br />compared with $140,000 in the same quarter a year ago. Sales, it said, were<br />flat.<br /><br />Jaco's stock has been hard hit. It was as high as $19 in 2000. Since, shares<br />have tumbled to around the $1 mark.<br /><a href='http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzjaco0409,0,3720354.story' target='_blank'>READ MORE</a>
