Election Integrity -- By Next Year

by: Hopeful

Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 09:45:48 PM EST

Thanks to the state legislature, New Jersey is already scheduled to require a paper trail by January 2008. The state's plan has been to 'upgrade' the existing Sequoia machines with printers. This week, a lawsuit aimed to get the machines thrown out now. The Ledger reports that the ruling is in: Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg is not throwing out the machines now, but she has a lot of skepticism about current plans. She said the state has to have a backup plan to replace the machines, and that she needs to see progress soon:

She scheduled May hearings to chart the state's course, and admonished state officials to cooperate with voter-rights activists in the meantime. "This is a public issue with regards to voting. This should not be an adversarial proceeding. This is what we need to do to ensure the integrity of the voting system," the judge said.

Update: Perhaps I should say a bit more. If you hoped that the electronic machines with no paper trail would be gone by your next election, then this ruling is disappointing. On the other hand, if you've been worried about this loophole in the law:

A waiver of the provisions of this paragraph shall be granted by the Attorney General if the technology to produce a permanent voter-verified paper record for each vote cast is not commercially available.

The judge has shown she is very serious that the paper record will be available, and will be keeping a close eye on the state and Sequoia.

Hopeful :: Election Integrity -- By Next Year

Tags: electronic voting, Linda Feinberg, Election Integrity, Sequoia, (All Tags)

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Election Integrity -- By Next Year | 4 comments

This paragraph is very likely a moot point (4.00 / 1)

A waiver of the provisions of this paragraph shall be granted by the Attorney General if the technology to produce a permanent voter-verified paper record for each vote cast is not commercially available.

Of the top 3 major vendors

The Sequoia edge has been available with a VVPB printer for about 2 years. The Diebold TSX and the ES&S iVotronic are both available with VVPB printers. Only the Sequoia Advantage is not available with a VVPB printer. It maybe that the Advantages archaic hardware is not capable of supporting a VVPB printer. The Advantage uses a 1970's zilog Z-80 processor, IIRC 8mgz. Some may recall the Radio Shack Tandy 80, IIRC, a computer available in the 70's, that used the Z-80 chip.

2 smaller vendors

Both Liberty and Avante offer DRE's with VVPB printers. Warren county purchased the Avante Vote Trakker late in 2005 IIRC.

I fail to see how anyone would claim that VVPB Printers are

not commercially available.

2 above images are of the Avante Trakker DRE, showing the VVPB Printer.

Avante Trakker screen, the above 3 pictures were taken at the Avante factory in Princeton NJ, summer 2005

The Feds say a voting machine cannot be higher than 48 inches. For whellchair voters. 2002 Voting System Standards, 1.2.2.7 mandated by the HAVA law.

http://i38.photobuck...

Open the above link in another window, My thumbnail version isn't going to convey the importance of the picture properly. THe opened link will show you my measurements of the Sequoia Advantage, the top of the screen is 54 inches high & cannot be lowered. It can be raised as my secondary measurements show: 35 & 32 inches equals 58 inches.

This movie is about our voting machine demo and covers some of the above mentioned DRE's, the Avante Vote Trakker, Advantage & Liberty.

I should thank the admins for not saying anything how I could have used the "PREVEIW" feature.....

DOH !

Check out my 3 paragraph primer on Polywell Fusion.

by: FogerRox @ Sat Feb 17, 2007 at 05:52:20 AM UTC

Sequoia Voting machies (0.00 / 0)

these machines need to be certified as per the law suit and they need to have printers added on to create the VVPT- voter verified paper trail by 1/1/08.
some NJ voters should see the demo of the new printers and not just our reps.
will they work? how expensive will they be?
maybe we should cut our losses on the sequoia machines and go the way of Florida, Maryland, New Mexico and scrap them and buy new (cheaper I think) paper ballot/op scan machines. We don't have too much time for this between now and 2008...This maybe too important to leave exclusively to the politicans- they need our help.

by: Ann R @ Tue Feb 20, 2007 at 21:05:21 PM UTC