Activist to meet with Codey staff re: voting machines

Friday, July 08, 2005

By PAUL BRUBAKER   Montclair Times

Montclair voters? rights advocates who said that they have been stonewalled by the state Attorney General?s office on Essex County?s pending conversion to digital record electronic (DRE) voting machines are scheduled to get the ear today of acting Gov. Richard Codey?s assistant chief of staff.

Today?s meeting is the result of a June 22 letter to Codey by Montclair resident Katherine Joyce on behalf of several activists concerned about the propriety of certain DREs. On Thursday, June 9, many of the activists convinced a majority of the Essex County Board of Freeholders to reject a $7.5 million bond ordinance to buy DREs that did not provide a voter-verifiable printed record.

?We urged this measure?out of concern that our freeholders would have no choice but to approve a wasteful purchase of flawed voting equipment,? Joyce stated in her letter to Codey.

Since the bond ordinance was rejected, the Attorney General?s office has held fast to the federal requirement for the county to convert to DRE voting machines in time for the first round of elections in 2006, and urged the Essex freeholders to reverse their decision.

Although the state may lose millions of dollars in federal reimbursements if counties fail to comply, voters? rights activists fear the Attorney General?s office may be putting the freeholders in the position of making what Joyce called ?a costly mistake.?

Attorney General Peter Harvey?s office has certified only one brand of DRE machine ? Sequoia Voting Systems? Advantage model ? that is able to display the entire ballot on a single viewing screen.

The Advantage, although upheld by Essex Superintendent of Elections Carmine Casciano as ?a good machine,? does not print a voter-verifiable record.

Since the freeholders? decision, the state Assembly has approved legislation that would require voting machines to have that capability by 2008. If Codey signs the bill into law, then the 700 Sequoia Advantage machines Essex County may purchase would need to be retrofitted with an additional device to comply with state law.

Among the answers Joyce and others want from the Attorney General?s office is a disclosure of the criteria for certifying voting machines.

?Attorney General [Peter] Harvey will not listen to us ? his office does not take, nor does it return, our calls,? Joyce stated in her letter.

Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the Attorney General?s office, did not accept the assertion.

?In terms of certification?I believe we?ve laid out this plan clearly,? Loriquet said. ?If the citizens of Montclair have an issue with this, they?re certainly more than welcome to take it to the governor?s office. But we?ve made our point loud and clear to the governor?s office as well. There are criteria for certifying the voting machines and the acquisition of voting machines, and we believe we have a good plan in place.?

In seeking the acting governor?s help, Joyce invoked Codey?s January 2005 State of the State Address in which he said that every electronic vote must have a paper record.

Codey?s assistant chief of staff, Joseph Fiordaliso, who will meet with Joyce today, indicated that Codey?s position hasn?t changed since then.

?I really have to speak to the governor about it,? Fiordaliso said. ?But his comments indicating that every electronically cast vote must produce a paper receipt is pretty much how he feels.?

But Fiordaliso added that today?s meeting does not necessarily indicate that Codey is willing to intervene in Essex County?s purchase of new voting machines.

?I don?t think that you can read anything into the fact that I?m meeting with them,? Fiordaliso told The Times. ?I?m going into it with an open mind and just to gather information and see if it merits moving forward. Whatever I learn from that I will bounce off of the attorney general and see where we go from there.?