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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk, under fire for having representatives of an activist organization inspect the county's new electronic voting machines, denies he has resigned and vows to oversee their now-needed recertification.
The county commissioners maintain that Funk resigned Monday night after the commission met behind closed doors with state elections officials and representatives of Diebold Elections Systems over Funk's allowing the approximately 40 machines to be tested by representatives of Black Box Voting, a nonprofit group that has been critical of electronic voting systems.
Funk said he was emotionally drained by Monday's confrontation when he said he would step down from his 23-year post. "At that point I just wanted out," he said.
But Funk said Tuesday that he has hired a lawyer and will fight to keep his position.
"I plan to fulfill the term of my office," Funk said. "I was elected to this position by the people of Emery County."
Commissioner Ira Hatch said Funk resigned, and, "As far as I'm concerned, it will stick.
"The legal beagles may look at it differently," Hatch said.
Joe Demma, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, said earlier that it could cost the county upward of $40,000 to have technicians reinstall the software on the voting machines.
"We don't know what they (the Black Box people) did to the machines," Demma said. "For all we know, they could have these set up so that they fail on Election Day, so he could then point the finger at us for the problems."
Emery County Clerk-Auditor Bruce Funk said he discovered discrepancies in available memory and called in Black Box Voting.
Diebold said the memory differences were due to varying sizes of font files in the computers.
County commissioners never agreed to the independent testing, and they have since changed the locks on the storage areas holding the machines and have not given Funk a key.
Funk says he plans to monitor and videotape Diebold's retesting of the voting machines.
"I don't think Diebold wants anyone to know what they do to the machines," Funk said. "It needs to be documented as to what they do and why, and videotape everything they did."
Hatch said that is unlikely to happen.
"I told him if he was a county employee, he could do that," Hatch said. "As of April 1, he is not going to be an employee of the county."
Michael Cragun, Herbert's deputy director, said statewide elections are the lieutenant governor's responsibility, though the county clerks manage the balloting.
"Ultimately, the county clerk is responsible for running the election within the parameters established by the Lt. Governor and the county commission," Cragun said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
