Jaco Electronics Corp., a relatively small components distributor, said Tuesday it won its largest-ever single award -- a contract to manufacture approximately 4,500 optical scan voting machines for use in New York State.

Hauppauge-based Jaco said in an announcement before markets opened that it will add 40 to 50 people to its 120-member Long Island workforce as a result of the contract. Jaco employes a total of 220.

An industry source said the contract is worth between $18 million and $20 million.

The company's stock, which has declined in recent years, soared on the news. In trading Tuesday, it was up 76 cents or 70 percent to $1.85.

Jaco, which has been making a different-type of voting machines for the last six or so years, said it won the latest contract from Dominion Voting Systems, a designer of optical scanning machines, in Toronto.

Dominion is a subcontractor to California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, a 100-year-old provider of voting systems. Sequoia has a contract with New York State to produce the optical scan machines.

Michelle Shafer, a Sequoia spokeswoman, said the company has contracts with 52 counties in New York State. There are 62 counties in the state.
"It's a big win," Joel Girsky, a Jaco founder and the company's chairman and chief executive, said in an interview. He said the contract was the largest-ever single award the company has won in its 47-year history. Jaco's annual sales are around $250 million annually.

Girsky said the optical scan voting machines will be built at the company's Hauppauge facility. He said they are expected to be completed this summer, in time for the presidential elections in November.

The 4,500 optical scan voting machines are being built for persons with physical handicaps, Girsky said. New York State now requires voting places to have at least one machine designated for the handicapped. Girsky said that he expects further orders next year for more machines that will be for use by handicapped and non-handicapped voters.

With the optical scan machines, voters fill out a paper ballot and place it into the machines, which scans the ballot electronically.

Voting machines have been a focus of controversy since the 2000 elections, when results were challenged in Florida, a re-count was held, and the state was given to Republican George W. Bush over his Democratic opponent, then Vice President Al Gore.

Voting machines manufactured by Diebold Inc. of Ohio were also the focus of controversy in 2003, when the company's chief executive, Walden O'Dell, told Republicans in a fund-raiser in Columbus that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Bush in '04 defeated Democrat John Kerry.

Since, many states have been opting for electronic scanning machines. New York has been among the last of the states to select the scanners. The 2002 Help America Vote Act requires at least one voting machine be accessible to handicapped persons in each polling place.

Jaco has been involved in manufacturing scanning machines for about six years. In 2005, it won a contract from Sequoia to make 3,000 15-inch, flat-panel voting display machines. Girsky said, however, that such display-type machines have largely gone out of use after questions were raised about their security.

The voting machine business is cylical, Girsky said. Greater interest in the machines usually comes during presidential election years.

Jaco has struggled in recent years as the electronic distribution industry has contracted. Much of the business is now in Asia.

In February, Jaco said it earned $39,000 in its fiscal second quarter, compared with $140,000 in the same quarter a year ago. Sales, it said, were flat.

Jaco's stock has been hard hit. It was as high as $19 in 2000. Since, shares have tumbled to around the $1 mark.

Source: MCT