Voting device on trial for reliability
Court wants to determine if machine's accuracy can be verified on paper
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 ions 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.