Sancho cited concerns about the security of the systems along with the need to adhere to federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and Florida election laws. HAVA dictates that every voting precinct have a touch-screen or specially-equipped optical scan device to allow the blind and other handicapped citizens to vote unaided.

Sancho later reached an informal agreement to buy US$1.8 million in equipment from ES&S, but that deal fell through, leaving the county in violation of HAVA. Because the county failed to have HAVA-required equipment in place in time, it was ordered to repay a half-million-dollar grant that had been earmarked for the machines.

Sancho said that the three vendors refused to sell to him 'because they could. The laws of Florida offer no protection to elections officials. There's no requirement that companies sell to the counties, which I think is a serious oversight in our laws. And quite frankly, the voting machine vendors have driven the [creation and passage of the] HAVA legislation from the beginning.'

The vendors offered varying responses to Crist's subpoenas. Diebold said it is reviewing the issue and declined to comment on the subpoenas for now. However, a spokesman said that Diebold did not refuse to sell equipment to Leon County; instead, the relationship was terminated by Sancho. 'Mr. Sancho notified us that he would prefer to work with another vendor,' the spokesman said. 'We have and will continue to respond to the County Board of Elections and the Secretary of State's office.'

ES&S also said it is reviewing the questions and document requests. While declining to offer more detailed comments, a spokesman said: 'After evaluating all of the information available to us, we reluctantly determined that we could not expect to have an effective partnership with [Leon] county.'