In December of 2007, the State Commission of Investigation issued a report (pdf) on the procurement and certification of voting machines in New Jersey. It's instructive to look back on its findings in light of the Attorney General's recent actions to obstruct an independent investigation of the state's voting machines.
When several counties found inconsistencies in the numbers reported by their Sequoia voting machines, they tried to arrange for an independent investigation by Princeton University computer science professor Ed Felten.
Sequoia threatened legal action to prevent that investigation and said they would conduct their own "independent" investigation instead. The Attorney General's office was content to allow a company to determine the fate of our election system:
The state attorney general is satisfied with the steps taken by Sequoia Voting Systems to identify and remedy problems with its voting machines...
David Wald, a state spokesman, did not comment directly on the county officials' demands, but said, "Sequoia told us they intend to run the machines through another independent lab."
Although the laboratories that conduct these tests are referred to in federal regulations as "Independent Testing Authorities," the fact that the tests are carried out at the expense of manufacturers whose products could be made more marketable by the results makes them anything but independent. Aside from the obvious appearance, if not outright reality, of a conflict of interest, this arrangement raises questions about the extent to which the public can have confidence in the ultimate integrity of the core machinery used in the electoral process.
What's even more shocking is that the report is very specific about suggesting how the state should conduct compliance testing. Milgram may want to reconsider blocking professor Felten from conducting an investigation:
New Jersey should move away from the practice of allowing vendors to pay for tests to certify machines as HAVA compliant. If it is determined to be economically unfeasible to arrange independent testing of voting machines via commercial laboratories under contract with the State, New Jersey should explore alternate remedies, such as utilizing the expertise of its own public research universities.
You can't get much more contradictory than that (except for the fact that Princeton is a private - not public - university). The Attorney General's office is doing the exact opposite of what the state's independent watchdog agency's study recommends. They're putting control of our election system into the hands of a machine manufacturer instead of demanding any real accountability. Attorney General Milgram's priorities are misplaced, and she should resign before doing permanent damage to the integrity of our voting process.
