More legal action in NJ

On December 4, 2012, the NJ Appellate Division will consider, for the third time in eight years, whether New Jersey’s paperless voting machines can continue to be used. Despite overwhelming science showing that NJ’s paperless electronic voting machines (DREs), like any computer, can be hacked, made to cheat, and lie about cheating, the trial court considering the case ignored this scientific evidence. No competing scientific evidence was presented at trial.

The Rutgers Law School Constitutional Litigation Clinic challenged the DREs in 2004 as violating the NJ Constitution, and Title 19 of the NJ Statutes. Both require that all voting machines used in the State count votes as cast. Their legal argument is based on my own scientific research, i.e., that because votes can be manipulated so readily on NJ’s DREs–and there is no way to check whether the DRE is cheating, we have no way of knowing whether those voting machines comply with NJ law. The legal argument is a strong one. But, the trial judge ignored it in the same way that she ignored my scientific research.

We would like to show the Appellate Division that the public cares about this issue and wants their vote to count. Over 35 states now require that voting machines be auditable. Although NJ passed great laws along these lines in 2005 and 2006, they have never been implemented, and were later suspended due to budgetary constraints.
The way to show the Court that you care about this issue is to come to the oral argument on December 4 at 10 a.m., at the Appellate Division Part E, Brennan Courthouse, 583 Newark Ave., Jersey City, NJ 07306.
Andrew Appel Princeton Professor and Electoral Reform Activist.

AS I predicted to the Essex County Freeholders in 2005, that the Sequoia Advantage DRE could not support a printer with a single z-80 chip (Z-80 chips are circa 1980) and Sequoia confirmed that a daughter board was required to drive a Voter Verified printer would cost $2,000 that pretty much koshed legislators enthusiasm for the VVPB and audit advocacy.

(Andrew actually gets his history wrong, the 2004 lawsuit claimed irreparable harm.)