Trenton,
NJ – Attorney General Anne Milgram
released a statement today on the consequences
of a delay in federal testing of electronic
voting machines and printer attachments
to comply with the state’s voter-verified
paper record law.
The Attorney General’s
full statement on the issue follows:
In my capacity as New Jersey’s
Chief Election Official, I wish to inform
the public of recent developments concerning
the implementation of the voter-verified
paper record law, which currently is scheduled
to go into effect on June 3, 2008.
To ensure that only the
most reliable voting technologies be used
to implement the law, my office promulgated
stringent criteria against which to test
any voter-verified paper record systems
(“VVPRS”) that may be used with
the direct recording electronic voting machines
(“DREs”) currently in use statewide.
We also made the unprecedented decision
to retain the New Jersey Institute of Technology
(“NJIT”) to independently test
any DRE with a VVPRS against the State’s
criteria. The three vendors who currently
have DRE machines in use in the State, Sequoia
Voting Systems, Avante International Technology,
Inc., and Election Systems and Software,
submitted DREs with VVPRS attachments for
certification. The products submitted were,
essentially, those voting machines currently
in use in the State upgraded to include
a printer attachment to enable voters to
verify, on a paper record, their voting
selections.
During the Spring and Summer
of 2007, each machine with VVPRS was tested
by NJIT. NJIT’s report for each machine
was reviewed by the State’s Voting
Machine Examination Committee, which also
conducted public hearings for each machine.
Based on NJIT’s report and the subsequent
recommendations of the Committee, I declined
to certify any VVPRS for use in the State
of New Jersey. I want to emphasize that
my decision not to certify the VVPRS applied
only to the printer attachments and not
the underlying voting machines, all of which
were previously certified in the State and
continue to be used in all New Jersey counties,
most recently in last Tuesday’s presidential
primaries. I note also that my decision
not to certify the printer attachments was
not based on any concerns about the printers’
or the voting machines’ core functionality,
but rather was based on the findings of
NJIT and the recommendations of the Committee
that the printer attachments fell short
of fully meeting several of our many criteria
that address more peripheral issues.
Thus far, two vendors, Sequoia
and Avante, have modified their products
to address the issues raised during the
first round of testing. Sequoia has already
submitted its modified products to NJIT
for a second round of testing and NJIT has
completed its review of those products.
However, as an extra safeguard, my office
also has continued to require that these
modified products be tested against federal
standards by an independent voting system
testing laboratory accredited by the United
States Election Assistance Commission.
Sequoia machines are used
in 19 of the State’s 21 counties.
In September 2007, Sequoia certified to
the State both that it would submit all
of its modified products to NJIT for a second
round of testing by mid-October 2007 and
that it expected to complete the federal
testing process by the end of the same month.
Based on this timeline, we fully expected
that both State and federal testing would
be completed before the end of December
2007, thus providing sufficient time to
certify, procure and have the vendor produce
and install the printer attachments by June
2008.
NJIT completed its testing
of Sequoia’s products in accordance
with this timeline. However, Sequoia’s
products have been delayed in completing
the federal testing process. Although Sequoia’s
initial indications to my office were that
this delay would not be lengthy, Sequoia
recently informed my office that federal
testing remains ongoing and will not be
completed until the end of February 2008,
at the earliest. At that time, Sequoia also
informed my office that this new schedule
will not permit sufficient time to implement
the printers by the June 2008 statutory
deadline, due to the four months Sequoia
requires to produce and install the number
of printer attachments that would be needed
in the State. No other vendor has yet resubmitted
a modified product to NJIT for a second
round of testing.
Upon learning of this development,
I briefed the Governor and the legislative
leadership and informed them of the various
options still available to maintain compliance
with the June 2008 statutory deadline. Chief
among these options was conducting the June
2008 election using exclusively paper ballots
in the polling place and having those ballots
centrally tabulated by each county’s
board of election either by a hand count
or with technology currently used to tabulate
absentee ballots. Either option would have
significantly delayed election results,
raised substantial ballot security, training,
and other concerns, and brought with it
the many risks inherent in switching the
entire State to a temporary, new voting
system in short order.
After reviewing all of the
available options, the legislative leadership
has proposed an alternative: that the voter
verified paper record deadline be extended
to January 1, 2009. I support such legislation
as the most responsible course of action
under the circumstances, and one that will
provide the State with adequate time to
ensure that only the most reliable technology
is certified and that there is ample time
to produce and install that technology,
as well as to properly educate the election
officials and the public on its use.
It is my firm belief that
our ground-breaking decisions to issue the
VVPRS criteria, to retain NJIT to independently
test the VVPRS against that criteria and
to continue to require federal testing will
ensure the best possible ultimate product
for the State of New Jersey. Sequoia has
assured us that the federal testing will
be completed well in advance of the newly
proposed deadline.
Finally, I want to emphasize,
as I have throughout this process, that
the State welcomes any vendor to submit
its products—whether they be DREs,
optical scanners, ballot marking devices,
or any other voting system—for certification.
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