New Jersey lawsuit against computerized voting terminals

[Paul Walmsley <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

this ought to be interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/nyregion/19voting.html


- Paul

October 19, 2004
New Jersey Lawsuit Challenges Electronic Voting
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

With just two weeks remaining before the Nov. 2 presidential election, a 
coalition of private citizens and local elected officials in New Jersey 
plan to file a lawsuit today to block the state's use of electronic voting 
machines.

At its heart, the complaint - a draft of which was provided to The New 
York Times - will ask the State Superior Court in Trenton to block the use 
of nearly 8,000 electronic voting machines, because they "cannot be relied 
upon to protect the fundamental right to vote."

More than three million registered voters in 15 of New Jersey's 21 
counties are scheduled to use the electronic voting machines, which have 
been dogged nationwide by concerns over their reliability and fairness. 
Five New Jersey counties use the old mechanical lever machines, like the 
ones in use in New York and Connecticut. One New Jersey county uses 
optically scanned ballots. Most counties also have optical scan machines 
in place for handling absentee ballots, and the draft lawsuit suggests the 
expanded use of these in lieu of the electronic machines.

"The right to vote is simply too important to not try to get some sort of 
court intervention to protect it," said Penny M. Venetis, a law professor 
with the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers University and the 
lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the suit.

Her complaint holds that the electronic voting machines used in New Jersey 
provide no means for verifying that they are recording votes properly, and 
that they are too easy for rogue programmers to manipulate.

"There's just too much at stake," Ms. Venetis said.

Fifteen electoral votes are up for grabs in New Jersey, which 
traditionally leans toward the Democratic candidate. But according to a 
recent poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, 
Senator John Kerry and President Bush remain in a virtual tie in the 
state.

The state's attorney general, Peter C. Harvey, a Democrat, whose office 
oversees elections in the state, said yesterday that it would simply be 
imprudent to make the kinds of wholesale changes suggested by critics of 
electronic voting.

"Our experience in New Jersey has not revealed any problem with the 
electronic voting machines," Mr. Harvey said, adding that the state, as 
part of a more deliberative process, will be holding a forum this month to 
consider all of the available voting options. He also said that even if 
the state wanted to, it would be impossible - and unwise - to introduce 
new rules and new technologies with just two weeks remaining before the 
election.

"You're just asking for trouble," he said.

About half of the 15 New Jersey counties using electronic technology this 
year upgraded to the systems after the 2000 presidential election. Few 
irregularities have surfaced in New Jersey counties that have used 
electronic voting in past elections, but the lawsuit cites numerous 
problems in other states using similar machines.

Efforts to halt the use of electronic machines in other states have thus 
far failed, giving rise to requests for special monitoring of elections in 
precincts where the machines are used. Last month, for instance, the 
Maryland Court of Appeals rejected a suit brought by a voter group, 
TrueVoteMD, which sought to force the state to further improve security on 
its machines and offer voters a paper-ballot alternative. The group is now 
locked in a legal battle with the state to gain poll-watching credentials.

And a federal court in Florida is scheduled to begin hearings this week in 
a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of electronic voting. The 
suit, brought by Representative Robert Wexler, Democrat of Florida, seeks 
to require a paper record for touch-screen machines in case a manual 
recount is needed.

The lawsuit planned in New Jersey claims that the state's use of the 
electronic machines comes despite repeated efforts to require that they be 
retrofitted to produce a voter-verifiable paper ballot, which could be 
used to verify the vote in the event of a recount.

A group of voting-rights advocates and computer professionals collected 
20,000 signatures over the summer for a petition seeking paper 
verification for electronic voting machines. The signatures were presented 
to representatives of Gov. James E. McGreevey on July 13, according to the 
complaint. And a letter, which requested a paper ballot alternative for 
all voters seeking one, was signed by several public interest 
organizations and submitted to state election officials in late August.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Trenton and one of the 
plaintiffs named in the suit, says there are too many reports that the 
machines are unreliable and can be tampered with.

"Our slot machines in New Jersey are more secure," Mr. Gusciora said.

But the Election Technology Council, a group of leading election systems 
vendors, including Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and 
Software, which manufacture New Jersey's equipment, have said the 
complaints about their machines are in keeping with "popular 
misconceptions about electronic voting."

"These are groups that would like us to return to the days of the 2000 
election and having election officials holding ballots up to the light to 
determine voter intent," said Bob Cohen, a spokesman for the council. 
"It's amazing to us that a technology that wrings out so much ambiguity 
from the voting infrastructure is the target of so much criticism."

But according to Professor Venetis, the new technology does not eliminate 
ambiguities so much as make it impossible, given the lack of a paper 
ballot and the proprietary software that runs the machines, to know when 
irregularities have occurred.

"It's rather ironic that these machines, which were supposed to answer the 
problems caused by antiquated voting systems," she said, "are simply 
making the problems invisible."