A suit filed in 2004 on behalf of Assemblyman Reed Gusciora by the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers School of Law-Newark challenging the accuracy of New Jersey's electronic voting machines was initially dismissed by the trial court. Today, the Appellate Division agreed with the plaintiffs, and has reinstated the case.
The lawsuit is the first in the nation to successfully challenge electronic voting machines..."Despite clear evidence that New Jersey’s voting machines are insecure, the other branches of government failed to take appropriate action. That is why the Court stepped in,� [lead counsel Penny] Venetis added.
The same voting machines used by almost all of New Jersey’s five million registered voters have been found too insecure to use and have been de-commissioned by California, Ohio, Nevada, and New York City. New Jersey does not check the software of electronic voting machines to determine whether they have been tampered with or whether they are faulty.
Nearly every voting machine in the state is electronic, but none of them provide a voter-verifiable paper trail. If the courts agree that rights are being violated and that the integrity of the election cannot be guaranteed by these machines, then by law, the machines must be scrapped.
Although a bill was passed last year calling for a voter-verified paper trail on electronic machines, the leadership in the legislature demanded that the bill be modified to go into effect in 2008, because the state didn't have the money to fix or retrofit them. Not only that, but they also snuck in a loophole to completely get around the 2008 deadline. The Appeals Court's decision seemed to be influenced by these provisions in the bill:
The Court was concerned with protecting the hundreds of millions of votes that would be cast on voting machines between now and 2008. The Court also expressed its concern that the Attorney General’s office would use a loophole in the statute and issue waivers to the 2008 voter verified paper ballot requirement – further jeopardizing the franchise.
It seems like the state has been strong-arming the counties into buying electronic machines only from Sequoia Voting Systems (someone up high must be good friends with the Sequoia folk). This despite the fact that the company has repeatedly failed to live up to its promises of providing a paper trail retrofit option for the machines, while other companies already provide such an option. After all these years of stalling, looking the other way and insisting on these flawed machines, the state may soon be faced with the horror of scrapping all of them. It's hard to feel sorry for that kind of incompetence.
