BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The company chosen to replace Louisiana's years-old voting machines is dismissing suggestions that the bid process was mismanaged.

Dominion Voting Systems filed its official response Wednesday to a protest of the contract award that losing bidder Election Systems and Software lodged with the state procurement office.

Dominion says its competitor simply wants another chance at winning the contract, without offering any substantive grounds for throwing out the contract award. Dominion disputes all allegations of impropriety.

Election Systems and Software said the process used to select Dominion was mishandled by Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, his office and the team that evaluated bids.

Contract negotiations with Dominion to replace 10,000 voting machines are stalled while the protest is under review. Dominion asked the state to end that delay.