Voting device on trial for reliability
Court wants to determine if machine's accuracy can be verified on paper
http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1142580553274430.xml?starledger?ntr&coll=1#continue
Friday, March 17, 2006
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG
Star-Ledger Staff
The state's most commonly used voting machine went on trial yesterday in a Mercer County courtroom.
Howard Cramer, vice president for sales at Sequoia Voting Systems, testified its electronic voting machines can be retrofitted to produce a paper record of votes cast by 2008, the deadline set by a law enacted last summer. He said it would cost about $2,000 to upgrade each of the 8,000 Sequoia machines currently used, a total of $16 million.
But under cross-examination by Penny Venetis, a lawyer with the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic, Cramer admitted his company is still working out problems in a prototype of its paper ballot printer and could not guarantee when it will be commercially available.
Technically, the hearing before Mercer County Assignment Judge Linda Feinberg is limited to whether the state can meet the Jan. 1, 2008, deadline for having voting machines that produce a paper audit trail, but more is at stake.
A state appeals court has reserved judgment on whether the machines used at the polls are so unreliable they violate the constitutional rights of voters. Before it rules, it wants to know whether the entire controversy is moot because all machines will soon produce paper trails that can be used to verify the accuracy of their tallies. It ordered Feinberg to find out.
So yesterday, Feinberg listened intently and frequently asked questions as Cramer described, in detail, which circuit boards would have to be replaced to upgrade the machines on which most New Jerseyans cast their ballots.
That machine is the Sequoia AVC Advantage, which is popular with election officials because it allows the voter to see all the candidates at once on a single screen. Critics contend its electronic vote tally is vulnerable to tampering and cannot be verified.
"Our votes should not be entrusted to mystery boxes where we have no idea if they are being accurately counted," Venetis said.
Cramer said his company is working on a solution that would be a hybrid of the newest technology -- computer voting -- and the oldest, the paper ballot. A voter would make selections for each office, press a button, and see them printed on a strip of paper behind a transparent screen. If correct, the voter would press another button to register the ballot. The paper strip would be cut off and fall, in random order, into a locked box.
If the choices shown on the paper strip are incorrect, the voter would push a button to void that ballot and try again. Most states allow a voter three attempts, but any number can be programmed into the machine, Cramer said.
Cramer said it should be commercially available "at the latest, early next year," but is still in "the prototype stage."
"We've identified problems. That's why it's still in testing," he said.
Under questioning by Venetis, Cramer admitted the prototype uses thermal paper, which turns black "over time, with enough heat."
Venetis said she will ask the appeals court to order the Attorney General's Office, which supervises elections, to come up with more reliable voting methods. The appeals court has scheduled a hearing for May 24.
Venetis said she expects the hearing before Feinberg to conclude early next week.
© 2006 The Star Ledger
Voting machine reliability on trial
Lawsuit seeks paper trail of ballots
http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-0/1142586362153740.xml&coll=5
Friday, March 17, 2006
By LINDA STEIN
Staff Writer
When Stephanie Harris of Hopewell Township went to vote in the 2003 primary she thought she cast her ballot and left the electronic voting machine.
She said the poll worker told her it didn't go through and asked her to push the button again. Harris did -- four times in all -- until the poll worker finally told her that she thought the machine had worked.
Harris is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to force the state to have voting machines with paper trails installed immediately or, if that is not possible, to add paper ballots that can be checked if a recount is needed. She was in Superior Court in Trenton yesterday as the suit went to trial before Assignment Judge Linda R. Feinberg.
"I am living proof that people have been damaged or disenfranchised in New Jersey," said Harris, 60, who raises organic produce, eggs, sheep and bees on her farm.
Feinberg dismissed the lawsuit last year but an appellate court panel sent it back for a trial while also retaining jurisdiction over the case. Feinberg is to issue a report to the appellate panel in April.
Howard Cramer, vice president for sales for Sequoia Pacific Inc., the company that provided voting machines to most New Jersey counties, testified yesterday that retrofitting the machines with a device that would leave a "cut and drop," a paper record of a voter's vote, would cost about $2,000 per machine. The technology would allow voters to re-do their vote if they see the paper copy is wrong, he said.
But the printers that would allow this are awaiting federal certification, he said. He predicted they would be ready by next year. About 8,000 Sequoia voting machines in the state would require this type of printer.
Another 200 machines of a different Sequoia model could use a reel-to-reel printer system that the company has used in other states, he said.
But under questioning by the plaintiffs' lawyer, Penny Venetis, Cramer conceded there was a problem with the tabulating software in a county in New Mexico that used that system that caused "misreported votes." But he said it was now fixed.
Venetis asked him if he warned Salem County, which has those machines, about the software problem. He said all customers had received "an appropriate fix."
When Venetis asked him about problems with machines in a Nevada county, Cramer told her, "That's not correct."
Cramer said his company has continued to sell voting machines in New Jersey without paper ballots even after a law was passed last year mandating an individual paper record of the votes cast by 2008. That law has a loophole allowing the attorney general to opt out if funding or technology is not available.
Cramer said he did not recall telling Mercer County freeholders in July 2004 that his company would submit the printers for federal approval in 2005.
"I have no personal knowledge of a promise, no contract and certainly no obligation," Cramer said. The freeholders set aside $500,000 for the printers in 2003, Venetis said.
New Jersey is one of 26 states that now have laws requiring electronic machines to be backed up by paper trails.
In an interview, David Dill, a computer science professor, said, "Not only are current electronic voting machines terribly insecure, there is no way to make them secure, even if we design completely new machines."
"Hackers are one problem, but what about the people who write the software for the machines? They can make them do anything they want and there is no effective way to stop them. What we really need is transparency and auditability," Dill said.
"Instead of trusting the machines, each voter needs to be able to make sure the machine has correctly captured his or her vote on paper. Then, enough of the voter-verified paper records need to be checked by manual counting to establish that the electronic counts are accurate," Dill said.
U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell Township, is one of 168 cosponsors of a bill that would require a paper trail in federal elections. That bill remains in a congressional committee.
"The bottom line is with the electronic voting machines there is no way to verify whether the vote you intended to be cast was cast as you intended," said Pat Eddington, Holt's spokesman.
The trial continues today and is expected to conclude next week.
