Both Houses of the New Jersey Legislature will vote on Monday on the question of whether or not to eliminate - not delay, as they have done twice already, but eliminate - any legal requirement for voter-verified paper records on the state's voting systems.
If you live in New Jersey, click here to send a message to state legislators now. New Jersey folks only, please.
New Jersey passed a law in 2005 to require voter-verified paper records on all voting machines by January 2008. The Rube Goldberg printers they chose for retrofitting on the Sequoia Advantage machines used in most of the state don't work, and as all states are, New Jersey is strapped for cash. But rather than gradually phase in an alternate, paper-based voting system such as precinct-based optical scan (the most widely used voting system in the country), and move the deadline to something achievable, the bills to be voted on Monday would establish a pilot program for the June primary, and then either issue recommendations to state officials, or let the Secretary of State decide whether to implement printer retorfits. Under the House version of the bill, the pilot may also include optical scan machines, but the Secretary of State would have no authority to implement an optical scan system or printer retrofits. Under the Senate version, she would have the discretion to implement printer retrofits by November 2010, but would have no authority to implement an optical scan system.
And reportedly, the Secretary of State, Nina Mitchell Wells, already believes that the printer retrofits are not right for New Jersey. She is almost certainly right about that, given the failure of the printers to date, but an alternate voting system is not under serious consideration.
The paperless Advantage machines used in most of the state are unreliable, hackable, and have miscounted ballots in a Presidential primary. The Clerk of Union County actually encouraged voters not to use the machines and vote absentee in the November election. They are also notorious for undervotes in down-ballot questions, likely due to usability issues created by the "full-face" format, in which all the offices and measures display at once.
Optical scan systems, with accessible ballot markers for voters with disabilities, are more cost-effective than electronic voting machines. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt testified to the Senate State Government Committee on Thursday:
As I understand it, the printer retrofit recommended by the Title 19 Committee only works with the AVC Advantage Model D-10, which is not yet in use in any county. By reference to a recent contract between Sequoia voting systems and a New Jersey County, the price for a headset-equipped Sequoia touch screen machines is $8,000. Therefore, arguably, every county will need not only new printers at $2,000 each, but also new touch screen machines at $8,000 each. The total cost could be as high as $112 million.
In contrast, if New Jersey converted to optical scan systems, the total cost would be closer to $36 million. With optical scan systems, only two items of equipment would be needed per election district, and I have been advised that advanced optical scanners and ballot marking devices retail for approximately $5,000 each. New Jersey has approximately 3,600 election districts. Therefore, two items of equipment at a total cost of $10,000 for each of New Jersey’s 3,600 election districts would put the cost of converting to an optical scan system at approximately $36 million. In addition, fewer items of equipment translates to costs savings not simply in the purchase, but also in the storage, programming, use, maintenance and transportation.
New Jerseyites, send a message to your legislators.
