Three years ago, the New Jersey Legislature passed a law requiring voter-verifiable paper records by January 2008. Then twice in 2008, the Legislature extended that deadline, first to June 2008, then to January 2009.
Now verifiable voting in New Jersey will be delayed indefinitely unless you act. The bill S2380, and its companion A3458, would undo the the requirement, and establish a “pilot program” for voter-verified paper records. If enacted, S2380 and A3458 could well mean that New Jersey voters will not have verifiable voting in time for the next election for Governor in 2009. The only reasonable course of action now is to require the deployment of a better voting system to meet New Jersey’s legal requirement for voter-verified paper records — paper optical scan ballots — as soon as feasible, but not later than the gubernatorial election.
New Jersey has had many problems with their Sequoia voting machines in the past. There is still a court case that is not complete. Why, in the face of the history of Sequoia in New Jersey, would the state legislators even think to change the law to allow the status quo? What action has been taken in the state by any vendor to make this happen? One can only wonder.
Below are links to a statement on the legislation made by Congressman Rush Holt and an action page that can be used by New Jersey voters, and others, to make their voices heard about this step backwards. We hope you will take action….
- Featured – NJ: Statement of U.S. Representative Rush Holt To the New Jersey Senate State Government Committee
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6667 - Featured – NJ: Stop Yet Another Delay for Verifiable Elections in New Jersey
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/199/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26210 - CA: Humboldt County – More Details on Diebold’s Lost Ballots in CA
The Failures Discovered in Diebold’s Tabulation System Are Even Worse Than Previously Reported…
https://bradblog.com/?p=6741 - CT: Accurate? How Many Votes Is A Handfull?
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=1115 - CT: Audits: Conn. voting machine counts accurate
http://www.courant.com/news/local/statewire/hc-ap-ct-electionauditsdec12,0,4332735.story - CT: Opinion – Results of 2008 post election audit show accurate Election Day machine counts
http://www.norwalkplus.com/nwk/information/nwsnwk/publish/News_1/Results-of-2008-post-election-audit-show-accurate-Election-Day-machine-counts2923.shtml - CT: Clayton election decided by drawing names
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1331389.html - MN: State: Wrongfully rejected absentee ballots could near 1,600
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/36043514.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs - MN: Franken Gets Big Win At Canvass Board
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/franken_gets_big_win_at_canvas.php - MN: Big, Good News for Al Franken in the MN Senate Race Today
https://bradblog.com/?p=6742 - MN: Absentee vote issue headed for state Supreme Court
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/36043514.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs - MS: Opinion – A good year for fair and responsible election reform
http://www.sunherald.com/editorials/story/1010714.html - NY: Dutchess County Passes Resolution To Retain Lever Voting Machines
http://re-mediaetc.blogspot.com/2008/12/dutchess-county-passes-resolution-to.html - OH: Montgomery County – Board of Elections: Voting machines missed votes
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/12/12/ddn121208votingweb.html - PA: Early Voting in PA Proposed
http://wearecentralpa.com/content/fulltext/?cid=48761 - TX: Harris County – County Clerk Questions Barbecue At Polling Site
http://www.click2houston.com/news/18259575/detail.html - TX: Harris County – Huffman barbecue may have been campaign violation
Candidate held event at location for early voting
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/6160739.html - TX: Court fight ends in key Texas House race, but voting rights lawsuit continues
http://www.southernstudies.org/2008/12/key-texas-house-race-settled-but-voting-rights-lawsuit-it-sparked-continues.html - VA: Goode asks for military ballots to be counted
http://www.thefranklinnewspost.com/article.cfm?ID=12488
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
Excellent statement by Rush Holt!
Wait a minute. It was John and Brad who were part of the the fringe-extreme in the voting rights movement, who fought HR 811 that would have mandated voter verified paper ballots on every voting machine in the country.
Now you want the very thing you fought against, established in New Jersey? Gee. Maybe you should have thought of that before. Before you helped the DRE companies quash a perfectly good piece of national legislation.
Kismet
Fringe extreme? That is a bit of an exaggeration to say the least.
Mandated voter verified paper ballots on every voting machine in the country? That is a misdirect. In fact that legislation would have changed the definition of a paper ballot to some ‘0’s and ‘1’s in computer code. It would have continued the use of DREs instead of getting rid of them.
See my reasons for being against HR-811 HERE and HERE.
By the way, I am hearing from good sources that the next generation of legislation to be put forth by Congressman Holt actually does not allow the continued use of DREs over time.
My concern with NJ is that they already have a state-wide DRE voting system. They already have a law on the books that requires them to add a vvpat printer; not a paper ballot printer; to their DREs. That law is about to be wiped-out.
Thank you for the comments and thank you for reading.