Lake County election board cancels poll worker management software contract after pushback
Lake County election board officials moved Tuesday to take steps to end the county’s contract with Michigan based Konnech Corp., for its PollChief poll worker management software purchased in 2020.
The county has yet to implement the software, whose purchase and proposed use drew the ire of a handful of Republican poll workers who have attended meetings for almost a year to complain about the software and ask officials to terminate its use.
Board member Michael Mellon, R-Munster, made the motion to end the contract and stop the annual software maintenance fees. The county already has paid the maintenance fee for 2023. The motion passed unanimously.
Mellon said approving the cancellation now gives the county the time it needs to end the contract next year. The county must provide a 180-day notice to cancel the contract before its annual renewal.
The move to cancel the contract was not due to the pushback from some residents nor does it affirm the validity of the concerns raised by those opposed to the software implementation, Mellon said after the meeting.
“I think the pushback from the community obviously made us look at the software; and in reviewing the software, we realized we weren’t utilizing it,” Mellon said, adding if the software is not being utilized, maybe it is just time to cancel it.
“I’m not going to disparage the company. I’m not going to engage in … rumor or innuendo because I don’t have enough facts to be able to do that. A lot of allegations have been made. I don’t know if there is anything to that or if there is not,” Melon said.
“What I am doing is looking at a piece of software we are not using. I’m canceling the contract because it is a cost we do not need to incur.”
Lingering questions about the software after the alleged storing of poll worker information from Los Angeles County on a Chinese server prompted the board to suspend full implementation of the software in 2022 while the claims were investigated.
According to a news release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Konnech Corp. CEO Eugene Yu was taken into custody Oct. 4 after it was alleged that contrary to the contract for the poll worker management software with the county calling for the company to securely maintain the data with only U.S. citizens and permanent residents having access to it, the information instead was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China.
Michelle Fajman, director of the Board of Elections, earlier this year said Konnech addressed the allegations in a letter indicating Yu was wrongfully arrested and the substance of the charges against him remain unclear. The letter reaffirms any information provided by the Lake County Board of Elections has been stored only on its servers in Lansing, Michigan.
It is unclear if Yu has been charged. No further information was available from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. A spokesperson for the office did not respond to a request about the status of the investigation by press time.
Tiffany Crate of Cedar Lake said she was encouraged by the board’s actions and that members were willing to listen to remonstrators against the software. She also said the cooperation is what is needed to bring the county together and make it more “godly.”
Barbara Koteles of Hobart said she was “speechless and in shock” following the board vote to cancel the contract.
“Thank you so much for listening to us,” Koteles said.
