DENVER — Federal election officials plan to suspend the accreditation of one of five U.S. laboratories that test voting machines, but they say the action won’t affect equipment used in next week’s elections.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission notified Denver-based SysTest Laboratories Wednesday that its accreditation would be lifted because the company lost a required certification from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The institute said it found problems with the SysTest’s testing methods, its training and its statements to manufacturers.
Mark Phillips, SysTest’s vice president of compliance services, didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message.
The company has three days to respond before EAC makes a final decision.
“The ball is in SysTest’s court,” said Tom Wilkey, executive director of the EAC.
Wilkey said that if SysTest’s accreditation is suspended, it could eventually be restored, but there is no timeline for when it would be reviewed and reinstated.
Officials said the proposed suspension would affect only machines that SysTest is reviewing for future elections, not ones that have already been cleared for use this year.
“Anything that is being used in this election has had to be certified long before,” said Doug Lewis, executive director of the Houston-based Election Center, a national nonpartisan group that works with election administrators around the country.
“There’s nothing in process in any of these labs that’s going to be used in this election,” he said.
SysTest has contracted to test voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and Premier Election Solutions, Wilkey said.
Colorado uses both those vendors. Ohio uses Premier and West Virginia uses Election Systems and Software.
EAC spokeswoman Sarah Litton said the other four labs accredited by the commission to test voting equipment are iBeta Quality Assurance in the Denver suburb of Aurora, InfoGard Labs of San Luis Obispo, Calif., and Wyle Laboratories, Inc., and CIBER, Inc., both of Huntsville, Ala.
