Johnson County's Next-Generation Voting System

Johnson County is seeking proposals for a next-generation, paper-based voting system to replace its existing voting equipment and election management environment.

The Johnson County Election Office, on behalf of the Johnson County Board of Commissioners (BOCC) and County Election Commissioner, seeks proposals for a comprehensive, modern, secure, scalable, paper-based voting system and associated election equipment capable of supporting the County's current operations and future election needs. [...] The County anticipates a significant acquisition consisting of approximately 1,800 ballot marking devices, 350 polling-place optical scanners, four high-speed central-count scanners, the required election management environment, and the carts, stands, peripherals, storage, charging, transportation, and other components necessary to operate the system countywide.

The contemplated solution includes:

• Election Management System (EMS) software and required local servers/workstations;
• Ballot marking devices (BMDs) and related components;
• Precinct ballot scanners/tabulators;
• High-speed central-count scanners;
• Tabulation, audit, recount, and reporting functionality;
• Election programming, ballot production, and print-ready ballot output capabilities;
• Required carts, stands, peripherals, spare components, transport/storage solutions, and consumables; and,
• Implementation, configuration, data migration, testing, training, documentation, warranty, maintenance, technical support, and lifecycle services.

The County intends for the complete system to be delivered to the Johnson County Election Office no later than **April 1, 2027**. Proposers must demonstrate that their manufacturing, supply-chain, implementation, and project-management capacity can support delivery of the proposed quantities by this date.

Warranty Maintenance and Support

The vendor shall provide a warranty and maintenance agreement through the completion of one federal election cycle, which for the purposes of this RFP is defined as the end of the year of the certification of the first general election in which congressional offices appear on the ballot, beginning on the date of acceptance by each county of the individual pieces of equipment for all hardware and software regardless of whether this warranty period for any piece of hardware or software shall extend beyond the term of the initial contract.

New Materials, Supplies or Equipment

All equipment provided by the Contractor must be newly manufactured, not reconditioned or refurbished in any way. Equipment and software must be fully released versions and models. All must be in production by their respective manufacturers at the time of the proposal.

The Contractor must provide services such as project management, hardware and software installation and readiness testing, on-site and remote technical support, hardware maintenance and repair, and voting system operation and support training.

All proposals and questions must be submitted through Johnson County's electronic bidding system.

It is the intention of the County to enter into a Contract for a term of 10 years. The parties may renew the contract, upon approval of the Johnson County, Kansas Board of County Commissioners, upon expiration of the original term for an additional optional one (1) year term.

The proposals will be evaluated by an Evaluation Committee usually composed of County personnel and/or other governmental agencies. [...] This scoring is determined by allocating points totaling 100, which are assigned to evaluation criteria similar to the sample scoring and categories below.

The Fee/cost proposal will only be required of finalists and due at the time of the interview. The cost proposal shall not be opened until all of the technical/qualification evaluation of the interview is complete.

To be considered eligible, the voting system configuration proposed for initial delivery and use by Johnson County must, as of the proposal due date:

• Be certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC); and
• Have demonstrated substantial progress toward certification for use in the State of Kansas by the Kansas Secretary of State.