Company explains voting machine errors  (NJ)

Robert Stern  The New Jersey Times        29 February 2008

The manufacturer of Mercer County's 600 electronic voting machines reported Friday that pollworker error is to blame for the 5 percent of the county's machines that recorded inaccurate voter turnout totals by party in the Feb. 5 presidential primaries.

"We identified a way in which pollworker error can result in the party turnout totals to be reported incorrectly," California-based manufacturer Sequoia Voting Systems said in a statement.

"This scenario takes place through an unusual sequence of pollworker actions ... that does not follow the prescribed election and machine procedures," according to Sequoia.

The mix-up centers on a control panel on the exterior of each voting machine that pollworkers use to activate the machine for each voter. In the case of a primary, pollworkers the voter's party so the appropriate party's primary ballot is displayed for the voter.

Some 10,000 Sequoia voting machines were used statewide in New Jersey's Feb. 5 presidential primaries, including 59 that had inaccurate voter turnout totals for each party in Mercer and five other counties, according to the state Attorney General's Office, which oversees New Jersey elections.

Both the Attorney General's Office and Sequoia, along with Mercer County elections officials, have said that the discrepancies in the party turnout totals had no effect on the voting tallies for each candidate, which were properly and accurately recorded.

Sequoia's announcement Friday said there is a simple change that can be made to the equipment to avoid a similar problem in the future.

"Sequooia's developers have identified a simple configuration change ... that can be undertaken by our customers as part of the election set-up that will prevent this issue from occurring," Sequoia said. "We are now in the process of sharing this information with our customers."