This had to be an inside job…

The stolen computers were delivered to the county in 2006 as part of a new comprehensive election system ordered from a Nebraska company that was supposed to include 60 electronic poll books. Instead it delivered 60 laptops, said Trey Granger, Montgomery County elections director.

“We immediately put this company on notice that they sent us the wrong equipment, refusing delivery of the laptops and told them to make the order right and pick up their property,” Granger said.

He said the company — Electronic Systems & Software (ES & S) — asked the county to store them until the company could arrange to have them picked up, promising to make the order right.

That was two years ago.

Granger said the county stored the boxed computers in a locked and secure room on the second floor of the Montgomery County Election Center at 125 Washington Avenue.

“We never paid for the laptops because they aren’t even close to what we specified in our order and we have pleaded with this company to pick up their property constantly since 2006, all to no avail,” Granger said Monday.

He said the loss of the laptops would not affect any of the upcoming elections scheduled in the county for this year.Within the last month, E S & S finally responded to the county’s request to pick up the laptops and both parties agreed the computers would be sent back to Nebraska on April 22.

Granger discovered the crime Friday after he told an intern at the elections office to move each boxed laptop to his first-floor office in preparation for E S & S to pick them up Tuesday.

“At 1:30 p.m., I inspected the boxes to make sure everything was in order before the vendor took possession of them on Tuesday,” Granger said.

“When I picked up one of the boxed-up laptops, it felt unusually light, so I cut the tape, opened the box, and it was empty with no computer in it at all,” Granger said.

He then continued to open every box.

“We tore through each and every box and while they were all perfectly sealed and taped shut, none of the boxes had its computer inside of it,” Granger said.

“The biggest irony of this crime is the laptops were stolen in a room next door to the sheriff’s criminal investigation office,” he said.

This was not just some petty thief, this was someone who knew the story on these laptops, and probably took one or two a day out of the building for two months…and who knows how long ago that was?

montgomeryadvertiser.com | Stolen Laptops Point of Dispute

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