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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 17, 2008
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Contact: Zach Goldberg
202-225-5801 (office) |
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HOLT STATEMENT ON NEW JERSEY VOTING REPORT
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West Windsor – U.S. Representative Holt commended the New Jersey Superior Court for releasing today a redacted copy of the voting machine inspection report, “Insecurities and Inaccuracies of the Sequoia AVC Advantage 9.00 DRE Voting Machine.”
“As I indicated last week when the report was withheld at the request of New Jersey’s voting system vendor, if it indicated that the voting equipment was reliable Sequoia would have been eager to see it published,” Holt said. “Now we know why the vendor wanted the report suppressed.”
Among other things, the report concluded that:
“Anomalies noticed by County Clerks in the New Jersey 2008 Presidential Primary were caused by two different programming errors on the part of Sequoia, and had the effect of disenfranchising voters.”
“New Jersey should not use any version of the AVC Advantage that it has not actually examined with the assistance of skilled computer-security experts.”
“The AVC Advantage’s susceptibility to installation of a fraudulent vote-counting program is far more than an imperfection: it is a fatal flaw.”
“The AVC Advantage is too insecure to use in New Jersey. New Jersey should immediately implement the 2005 law passed by the Legislature, requiring an individual voter-verified record of each vote cast, by adopting precinct-count optical-scan voting equipment.”
“The State should take whatever action it can to detect and remedy these and other vulnerabilities and to provide back-up measures in time for the November election,” Holt said.
Holt previously has urged the Secretary of State to deploy emergency back-up ballots to be used and counted as regular ballots in the election.
The emergency back-up paper ballots would be offered to voters if there is an apparent malfunction of the machines on Election Day. If an error is subtle and undetected, the voter would not be given the alternative of an emergency back-up paper ballot. The voter can avoid using suspect voting machines by requesting and using an absentee paper ballot, by mail or in person, per regular absentee voting procedures.
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