February 26, 2009
February 25, 2009
February 17, 2009
February 10, 2009
Creekside lawsuit extends its reach
PhillyBurbs.com: "Creekside lawsuit extends its reach, " by James McGinnis, Courier Times/Intelligencer, February 10, 2009.
February 9, 2009
Northampton wins $1.7 million voting machine judgment
County doubts it'll collect from Advanced Voting Solutions
By Tom Coombe, Morning Call, January 31, 2009
Northampton County won a nearly $2 million judgment Friday against a company that sold it faulty voting machines in 2006. Just don't look for the county to collect the money any time soon. Following a brief hearing in county court, Judge Stephen Baratta said Advanced Voting Solutions of Frisco, Texas, must pay $1.9 million, plus court costs and interest, to the county. Now the county needs to figure out how to get money from a company that seems to have vanished.
''It's sort of a shallow victory,'' said county Administration Director John Conklin, who attended the hearing. ''It puts it to bed.''
The judge made the ruling after hearing arguments from Christopher Spadoni, representing the county. No one showed up to represent the company.
''Is the other side here?'' one of the judge's staff asked Spadoni before the hearing began.
''There is no other side,'' he told her.
The county sued AVS in December 2007 after the machines -- which contained a glitch that would not allow them to be programmed to handle certain candidates -- were decertified by the Pennsylvania Department of State. The machines have sat unused in a county storeroom since 2007.
The voting machines cost $2.1 million, $1.9 million of which was covered by a federal grant. After the state decertified the machines, the county switched back to its old lever system for the November 2007 election, then spent $1.7 million to buy new machines from Sequoia Voting Systems of Denver. But since filing the suit, the county hasn't been able to contact AVS. Its phones have been disconnected and e-mails are undeliverable.
''My information is that they're not around, if that's a good phrase,'' Spadoni said. It was good enough for Baratta, who said he would sign an order for AVS to pay up. Actually getting the money might be more complicated. Spadoni said the county will ''take all appropriate steps'' to collect the judgment. Conklin said the county may need to hire a collection agency.
''There are many judgments that are never collected,'' Spadoni said. ''The taxpayers got hosed.''
By Tom Coombe, Morning Call, January 31, 2009
Northampton County won a nearly $2 million judgment Friday against a company that sold it faulty voting machines in 2006. Just don't look for the county to collect the money any time soon. Following a brief hearing in county court, Judge Stephen Baratta said Advanced Voting Solutions of Frisco, Texas, must pay $1.9 million, plus court costs and interest, to the county. Now the county needs to figure out how to get money from a company that seems to have vanished.
''It's sort of a shallow victory,'' said county Administration Director John Conklin, who attended the hearing. ''It puts it to bed.''
The judge made the ruling after hearing arguments from Christopher Spadoni, representing the county. No one showed up to represent the company.
''Is the other side here?'' one of the judge's staff asked Spadoni before the hearing began.
''There is no other side,'' he told her.
The county sued AVS in December 2007 after the machines -- which contained a glitch that would not allow them to be programmed to handle certain candidates -- were decertified by the Pennsylvania Department of State. The machines have sat unused in a county storeroom since 2007.
The voting machines cost $2.1 million, $1.9 million of which was covered by a federal grant. After the state decertified the machines, the county switched back to its old lever system for the November 2007 election, then spent $1.7 million to buy new machines from Sequoia Voting Systems of Denver. But since filing the suit, the county hasn't been able to contact AVS. Its phones have been disconnected and e-mails are undeliverable.
''My information is that they're not around, if that's a good phrase,'' Spadoni said. It was good enough for Baratta, who said he would sign an order for AVS to pay up. Actually getting the money might be more complicated. Spadoni said the county will ''take all appropriate steps'' to collect the judgment. Conklin said the county may need to hire a collection agency.
''There are many judgments that are never collected,'' Spadoni said. ''The taxpayers got hosed.''
February 1, 2009
NJ voting-method battle
Money, law, technology vie in N.J. voting-method battle, by Cynthia Henry, Philadelphia Inquirer, 02/01/2009
Efforts to ensure that all of New Jersey's voting machines produce a paper record of votes generated responses ranging from "too expensive" to "don't fix what ain't broken" last week as the issue played out at polling places, in court, and at the Statehouse.
A year behind a legislative deadline, the state is struggling to find the money and the right technology to back up machine-cast votes with a paper trail voters can see.
Only seven states, including New Jersey and most of Pennsylvania, still use paperless voting systems.
"Why is the state fighting citizens?" asked Stephanie Harris, a plaintiff in a lawsuit over voting-machine security that went to trial in Mercer County last week. "Financial issues have become the biggest obstacle to a voter-verified system."
On Jan. 5, Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells authorized retrofitting machines used in 18 of 21 New Jersey counties with printers that would provide a record in case of glitches or recounts. A small number of reconfigured machines were used with mixed results Tuesday and Wednesday in local elections in Passaic, Monmouth and Somerset Counties.
But legislative and court actions could render the machines' performance moot.
The Assembly's State Government Committee decided Monday that New Jersey could not afford to continue with the retrofitting in the weakened economy. Gov. Corzine diverted $19 million budgeted for the $26 million project back into the state's general fund last month.
Not that it matters, according to Committee Chairwoman Joan M. Quigley (D., Hudson). The technology isn't up to snuff anyway, she said.
In an August demonstration, Quigley said, a manufacturer's representative could not operate the printer that would allow voters to view their choices.
"I'm hoping, while we're waiting for the money to arrive, they can improve the technology," she said.
The Assembly could vote as early as Thursday on a bill to delay machine upgrades until the economy improves.
Also at issue are the security and reliability of the state's Sequoia AVC Advantage 9.0 voting machines. Pennsylvania's Montgomery County also uses Sequoia machines.
Plaintiffs in a four-year-old civil case contend that the Sequoia model is prone to errors and easy to hack. They hope to persuade New Jersey to replace it with paper ballots scanned by computer, which provide evidence for a recount, said Irene Goldman, chair of Coalition for Peace Action in Princeton, a party to the suit.
"Nobody wants to retrofit these machines," she said. "It's just wrongheaded."
Elections Superintendent Laura Freytes, however, said Passaic County had used Sequoia machines since 2005 with no lost votes, evidence of tampering, or other problems.
On Tuesday, the county tried Sequoia machines modified with printers in a school bond election. The printers jammed periodically, and at one polling place all three machines went down at once, Freytes said.
The new process also created longer waits to vote. "And this was just a yes-or-no question," Freytes said.
Adding that new technology intimidated some voters and poll workers, she said, "They should leave the voter machines as they are."
Quigley said she worried that voters' reviewing a long ballot through the printer's small window would significantly slow the process. She also thinks voters will expect a receipt, like the one they receive at an automatic teller machine, which the printers do not provide.
In Monmouth County, school bond voting went smoothly for more than 600 residents who were offered written instructions and demonstrations of the retrofitted Sequoia before entering the booths, said Hedra Siskel, elections superintendent.
But she, too, thinks "the state should leave the machines alone."
Since 2004, six states have passed laws to eliminate direct-recording electronic machines. No state since 2006 has retrofitted such a machine with a printer, said Sean Flaherty, a researcher for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Verified Voting Foundation. New Jersey twice delayed compliance with its voter-verification mandate, in part to give Sequoia time to design a printer.
Most states are leaning toward optical or digital scans of paper ballots, a method New Jersey county party chairs dislike, Quigley said. States report that as many as 10 percent of voters fill the ballots out incorrectly, she said.
An optical-scan system to serve all of New Jersey could cost as much as $122 million, according to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
In Mercer County, Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg wanted no talk of optical-scan and other systems.
"Is it my role to determine the alternatives or is it the secretary of state's?" she said. "At the end of the trial, I'll give you some of my thoughts on this."
Feinberg pledged on the trial's opening day to keep arguments focused on the security and accuracy of the one Sequoia ADC Advantage model.
The case, which could last four weeks, is based largely on experiments in 2007 and 2008 in which Princeton University computer-science professor Andrew Appel and his team broke into the machines in "about seven minutes, using simple tools," they said. The state defends the machines' integrity with its own expert, Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Michael Shamos.
Voters including Harris, of Hopewell, Mercer County, joined the suit because of experiences at the polls. In 2004, Harris testified, an electronic machine failed to register her vote three times.
After the fourth try, she testified, a poll worker told Harris, "I think it counted." Since then, Harris said, she has voted mostly by absentee ballot.
Efforts to ensure that all of New Jersey's voting machines produce a paper record of votes generated responses ranging from "too expensive" to "don't fix what ain't broken" last week as the issue played out at polling places, in court, and at the Statehouse.
A year behind a legislative deadline, the state is struggling to find the money and the right technology to back up machine-cast votes with a paper trail voters can see.
Only seven states, including New Jersey and most of Pennsylvania, still use paperless voting systems.
"Why is the state fighting citizens?" asked Stephanie Harris, a plaintiff in a lawsuit over voting-machine security that went to trial in Mercer County last week. "Financial issues have become the biggest obstacle to a voter-verified system."
On Jan. 5, Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells authorized retrofitting machines used in 18 of 21 New Jersey counties with printers that would provide a record in case of glitches or recounts. A small number of reconfigured machines were used with mixed results Tuesday and Wednesday in local elections in Passaic, Monmouth and Somerset Counties.
But legislative and court actions could render the machines' performance moot.
The Assembly's State Government Committee decided Monday that New Jersey could not afford to continue with the retrofitting in the weakened economy. Gov. Corzine diverted $19 million budgeted for the $26 million project back into the state's general fund last month.
Not that it matters, according to Committee Chairwoman Joan M. Quigley (D., Hudson). The technology isn't up to snuff anyway, she said.
In an August demonstration, Quigley said, a manufacturer's representative could not operate the printer that would allow voters to view their choices.
"I'm hoping, while we're waiting for the money to arrive, they can improve the technology," she said.
The Assembly could vote as early as Thursday on a bill to delay machine upgrades until the economy improves.
Also at issue are the security and reliability of the state's Sequoia AVC Advantage 9.0 voting machines. Pennsylvania's Montgomery County also uses Sequoia machines.
Plaintiffs in a four-year-old civil case contend that the Sequoia model is prone to errors and easy to hack. They hope to persuade New Jersey to replace it with paper ballots scanned by computer, which provide evidence for a recount, said Irene Goldman, chair of Coalition for Peace Action in Princeton, a party to the suit.
"Nobody wants to retrofit these machines," she said. "It's just wrongheaded."
Elections Superintendent Laura Freytes, however, said Passaic County had used Sequoia machines since 2005 with no lost votes, evidence of tampering, or other problems.
On Tuesday, the county tried Sequoia machines modified with printers in a school bond election. The printers jammed periodically, and at one polling place all three machines went down at once, Freytes said.
The new process also created longer waits to vote. "And this was just a yes-or-no question," Freytes said.
Adding that new technology intimidated some voters and poll workers, she said, "They should leave the voter machines as they are."
Quigley said she worried that voters' reviewing a long ballot through the printer's small window would significantly slow the process. She also thinks voters will expect a receipt, like the one they receive at an automatic teller machine, which the printers do not provide.
In Monmouth County, school bond voting went smoothly for more than 600 residents who were offered written instructions and demonstrations of the retrofitted Sequoia before entering the booths, said Hedra Siskel, elections superintendent.
But she, too, thinks "the state should leave the machines alone."
Since 2004, six states have passed laws to eliminate direct-recording electronic machines. No state since 2006 has retrofitted such a machine with a printer, said Sean Flaherty, a researcher for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Verified Voting Foundation. New Jersey twice delayed compliance with its voter-verification mandate, in part to give Sequoia time to design a printer.
Most states are leaning toward optical or digital scans of paper ballots, a method New Jersey county party chairs dislike, Quigley said. States report that as many as 10 percent of voters fill the ballots out incorrectly, she said.
An optical-scan system to serve all of New Jersey could cost as much as $122 million, according to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
In Mercer County, Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg wanted no talk of optical-scan and other systems.
"Is it my role to determine the alternatives or is it the secretary of state's?" she said. "At the end of the trial, I'll give you some of my thoughts on this."
Feinberg pledged on the trial's opening day to keep arguments focused on the security and accuracy of the one Sequoia ADC Advantage model.
The case, which could last four weeks, is based largely on experiments in 2007 and 2008 in which Princeton University computer-science professor Andrew Appel and his team broke into the machines in "about seven minutes, using simple tools," they said. The state defends the machines' integrity with its own expert, Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Michael Shamos.
Voters including Harris, of Hopewell, Mercer County, joined the suit because of experiences at the polls. In 2004, Harris testified, an electronic machine failed to register her vote three times.
After the fourth try, she testified, a poll worker told Harris, "I think it counted." Since then, Harris said, she has voted mostly by absentee ballot.
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