New Voting Machines Are Contested At Princeton University's Town Forum

Candace Braun

Rep. Rush Holt, Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, and several other advocates of voting rights led a forum on Monday, that discussed the reliability and verifiability of the new electronic voting machines that will be used in New Jersey in the November elections.

The forum, sponsored by the Sandra Starr Foundation, was titled, "How Far Is New Jersey From Florida," playing on the problems Florida faced with their voting counts in the 2000 election.

"One thing that came out of the 2000 election is that voting isn't as simple as they thought it was," said Rep. Holt.

Rep. Holt, D-Hopewell Township, informed the approximately 100 people in attendance that a total of 50 million voters will be using electronic machines in the November election, which constitutes approximately 30 percent of the nation's voters.

Mercer County spent over $3 million to purchase the electronic machines that will be used this November, said Mr. Hughes. He said the machines were purchased before November to insure funding from HAVA, the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Princeton residents recently had the opportunity to try out the machines during the school budget elections, however only six percent of Borough residents and seven percent of Township residents who are eligible to vote came out to the polls. While no errors in votes were found in the local elections, according to Rep. Holt, there is currently no way to determine if there was an error in the system.

"If you cast a vote in an electronic voting machine you cannot know if it was actually cast," he said. "A recount on these machines is meaningless."

Rep. Holt said he used one of the machines himself in the School Board elections, and "found it to be simple, clear, and totally unverifiable."

The congressman said he is proposing a bill, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which would require all voting machines to provide a paper trail.

He said that he does support the use of the machines for various reasons, including the accessibility for those with handicaps, and the ability for those who are blind to vote in secrecy. He said that there are many clarifying features to the voting machines, however it is the verification that remains hazy.

"The verification should belong to the voter," he said. "And that's the clarification I've asked for in Congress."

Rep. Holt's bill would call for random spot checks in one-half of one percent of the machines, no electronic input into the machines from the outside that could potentially tamper with vote counts, software readily available for inspection, and a clear paper trail each time a voter exits the polls.

"These are our sacred ballots we're talking about," said Rep. Holt. "We want them as reliable and verifiable as possible."

Ingrid Reed, director of the Eagleton New Jersey Project at Rutgers University, discussed the many facets of voting that could potentially create an error in the final count.

"I think of election day like a wedding," she said. "There's a a huge amount of preparation for it ... and you only have one chance at it. If you blow it, it's done."

Lionel Leach, director of the National Voter Project of the NAACP, talked about voter suppression, and raised the issue of how for many years people have found ways to decrease voter turnouts and change voting results by making the voting process too complicated or impossible for certain voters of a certain race.

"What happened in Florida was not the first time this has gone on," said Mr. Leach. "It was just the first time there was national coverage."

Mr. Leach said that the most important thing for voters to do in this election is to be educated on their rights before they enter the polls.

Mr. Hughes said he will be meeting with the makers of Mercer County's voting machines on May 6 to determine if it will be possible to add a device that will include a paper trail before November.

Rep. Holt said that his bill, which has 130 co-sponsors, could still be passed before the November elections if progress is made in the near future.