Next year, at the primary election for national candidates, the voter faces two possibilities when he or she casts their vote. You may review a printed copy of your vote made on a touch-screen electronic machine. Or you may fill out a paper ballot that would then be read by a scanning machine that tallies the vote.
In each case the voter would personally verify the accuracy of their vote by looking at a paper copy of their selections of candidates. In neither case would they keep the paper ballot. It would be retained at the polling place, providing a paper trail in case a recount was required.
This change is required because NJ's electronic touch-screen voting machines contain the potential for tampering. These machines provide no paper receipt of your vote that enables you, or any election official, to verify the accuracy of the recorded vote.
The possibility of election fraud led NJ legislators to pass a law requiring all 10,000 NJ e-voting machines be retrofitted with printers that would provide a printed copy of each vote. The legislation requires the completion of the added printers by January 2008. The printers would would first be used in the February 5th primary election for national offices.
However, a group of NJ voter rights activists has gone to court asking that e-voting machines be completely replaced with a system of paper ballots and new electronic scanning machines that would then read each individual ballot and tally the results.
So, voters either will review a printed copy of the vote they made on a touch screen electronic voting machine or fill out a paper ballot that would be read by a scanning machine. In each case the voter would personally verify the accuracy of their vote and a hard copy would be created for recounts.
Problems with the proposed printers are presenting serious problems. On July 20th, New Jersey Institute of Technology reported that its state-requested examination of the printer models being offered by e-voter machine companies found 33 flaws. The vendors responded that the problems were largely due to misinterpretation and could easily be fixed. However, a study by the University of California also reported inadequate security measures in electronic voting machines, including the possibility of changing or invalidating election results.
On August 3rd, California's top election official decertified three voting systems including the Diebold and Sequoia companies e-voting machines. The official did allow these machines to be used in the presidential primary but only if additional security precautions are taken.
On August 2nd, Judge Linda Feinstein ordered the State of NJ to present plans by September 5th for replacing all 10,000 e-voting machinges in case vendors were unable to meet the January deadline to retrofit the voting machines with printers. At that hearing, advocates for optical scanning spoke out again. They cited a deputy public advocate who raised concerns about the printer tests at NJIT and a lack of state standards. Their lawyer cited testimony to a state committee that estimated it could cost $40 million per election to retrofit 10,000 Sequoia AVC Advantage machines. She said using optical scanners would cost far less.
Judge Feinberg did indicate the possibility of replacing voting machines with optical scanners or asking the Legislature to extend the January deadline for printers, but said she really did not want that to happen.
In early August, Attorney General Anne Milgram added to the pressure warning that e-machine vendors must correct the shortcomings and submit the devices for re-testing before they may be used in a statewide election. Such testing would take six weeks.
Calling it a crisis, on September 5th Judge Feinberg gave the state just one week to come up with plans to replace every voting machine. She directed a report back by September 13th, with a hearing on the 17th.
What difference does it make to you? It makes a significant difference if you bellieve that in a democracy the individuals who receive the greatest number of actual votes are those who are sworn into office to serve.
Ask yourself the following questions: Are you willing to make the effort to review a printed copy of your touch-screen electronic vote in order to be sure that your choices were accurately recorded? Would you be willing, as citizens used to do, to make your voting choices on a paper ballot that would then be optically scanned so that there is both a paper and an electronic record? Do you feel that the touch screen on electronic voting machines is so easy and convenient that you are not willing to use some other system that would require some additional effort on your part? Are you willing to pay, through your taxes, the additional $40 million per election estimated as the cost of using printing machines attached to electronic voting machines?
Keep posted. A decision must be made very shortly in order to insure that the people of New Jersey have a reliable voting system ready in time for the primary election for candidates for national positions in early February.