— Brad Friedman
Sequoia Voting Systems’ legal threats against Princeton computer science professors and New Jersey election officials, as we reported in exclusive detail last night, have apparently had their intended effect.
The strong-arm email sent to professors Ed Felten and Andrew Appel was apparently accompanied by a two-page letter to Union County, New Jersey, Clerk Joanne Rajoppi, who originally discovered a tally failure in Sequoia’s AVC Advantage touch-screen voting machines after the February 5th Super Tuesday election. The same error was subsequently discovered in at least five other counties.
Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello tells the New Jersey Times that Sequoia’s decision to block an independent analysis of its touch-screen voting machines makes no sense if the firm is confident that they work properly.
“I think it’s unfortunate that they’re not letting an independent investigation take place,” Sollami-Covello tells the paper this morning. “They should have no problem with having a third party investigate the product if they are confident in their product.”
Another Mercer County, NJ, official sent a letter to the state Attorney General criticizing Sequoia’s bizarre explanation for failures discovered in the systems following state’s recent Primary Election, characterizing what he describes as the company’s “strange, confusing solution.” He said the company’s explanation for the problem, which succeeded in blaming voters and poll workers as usual, was based on a “bizarre scenario, with no cited evidence or testimony” to back it up.
While NJ’s state clerks association had voted unanimously to recommend that the Attorney General commission an independent study of the machines — the same ones which will be used across the state of Pennsylvania in next month’s key Democratic Primary Election — Union County’s plan to move forward with their own study has been nixed due to the legal threats sent from Sequoia’s VP of “Compliance/Quality/Certification” Edwin Smith, according to a number of New Jersey papers today.
Amazingly (or perhaps, not so much at this point), Union County’s attorneys folded to the pressure from the company, which claimed that Election Officials in NJ — who spent millions on the voting systems — are not legally allowed to examine them independently because “the voting machine software is a Sequoia ‘trade secret’ and cannot be handed over to any third-party.”
Fear of a lawsuit from Sequoia, which will also control the state’s elections in an upcoming June primary, as well as the November general election, has led to county attorneys backing down from their plans for the time being, unless the state AG jumps in to take action.
In the threatening email from Smith to the Princeton professors sent last Friday, as posted here in full last night, the company executive threatened legal action if a “non-compliant analysis” of their voting systems was carried out. “We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property,” Smith warned.
The Star-Ledger reports the latest, almost mind-numbingly incredible, developments in your democracy, now fully and completely in the hands of privatized corporate America, this morning…
Last week, Rajoppi had persuaded the statewide clerks’ association to hire Felten, who made national headlines two years ago when he demonstrated how a computer virus could alter the result on Diebold voting machines.
The Constitutional Officers Association of New Jersey called for the independent review to insure the integrity of the election process. Sequoia maintained the errors, which were documented in at least five counties, occurred due to mistakes by poll workers.
…
On the advice of the county’s attorneys, however, Rajoppi said she must forgo all plans for independent analysis.
“We’re not going to proceed and invite a lawsuit,” said Norman Albert, first deputy counsel in Union County.
It wouldn’t be the first time an election official expressed fear of facing a voting machine vendor in court. A number of them have expressed both publicly and privately to The BRAD BLOG their concern about holding these companies legally accountable, given that they must rely on the same companies to run their next election.
Rutgers University law professor Penny Venetis stated what should be quite obvious in the Star-Ledger article today…
Union County Clerk Rajoppi said she was “disappointed we cannot go forward with some type of independent study.”
John Carbone, an attorney representing the state clerks association, summed up the sorry situation: “We don’t have access to the machines, so we can’t do anything.”
Livermore Laboratory’s computer scientist David Jefferson jumped in to comment on our story yesterday, which included the full threatening email sent to the Princeton Professors, in order to note the importance of such a test being carried out on New Jersey’s Sequoia machines prior to the use of the very same systems next month in Pennsylvania.
“We have only a matter of weeks before the Pennsylvania primary in which the same machines will be used in Philadelphia, and only a few months more until the general election,” Jefferson wrote. “This bug (and any others discovered) must be fixed.”
He went on to point out that New Jersey’s Attorney General Ann Milgram “currently holds certification authority comparable to [Secretaries of State] in other states,” and that she could order such an independent technical review, but that she has not done so to date. She “seems disinclined to,” according to the scientist who has worked on a number of state e-voting studies across the country.
“If BradBlog readers want to help,” he writes, “they could write Ms. Milgram and politely impress upon her the seriousness of the problem…and ask her to support the Princeton review or commission her own independent technical review.”
Milgram’s office can be counted a number of ways, via this web page.
Related stories at The BRAD BLOG…
What has happen to the citizens of this country? We seen to enjoy posting about the corruption from this administration,, but we seem not to have the time or will to do anything to force our representatives to stop it.
We are as close to a full blown dictatorship as any country could possibly be, and we are just talking and not doing enouh to stop it.
Our whole government is out of control and we need to be stopped them sooner then later.
The laws they are “not” inforcing and the laws of which they are “passing” are “ILLEGAL” under our constitution , bill of rights and laws of our country. By the refusal to enforce our laws it means our constitution , bill of rights and all laws of our country mean nothing and we are a lawless country. Can you immagine what our forefathers would say or how they would feel to see the spineless actions of the citizens of this country.
The artificial intelligence movement prevails once again.
“Businessmen” run the government. What do you expect? If prisons are for profit, what are courts and cops worth?
Elections are technicalities that pacify silly peasants.
Banks go bust and the stock market rises. It’s all taken care of. Take a vacation. Go to Vegas, Atlantic City.
Forget about it or somebody might break your knee caps.
Sporty,
Consider that the fascist media doesn’t inform citizens about events such as these. It’s not that the people are spineless, it’s that they are kept clueless.
If you’ve got a non-call-to-arms message that you would like to have aired on Sacxtra! TV I would be happy to set that up for you, you can contact me on my website and the format I take is MiniDV or DVD and I ask that you keep your message brief and to the point as I am a MUSIC TV show.
This offer goes out to anyone else out there as well. We might not be able to get the message out on corporate media but sure as hell can on Public Access TV. I also urge you to seek out your own local public access tv station and create your own show or at least support them.
Okay, so they are spineless. They could just refuse to use the machines and switch to paper ballots. So money and contracts- the only allegiance involved in this crock- are obviously more important to the state government than the foundation of democracy. Talk about a slippery slope…
And while your at it, go visit your local corporate network TV stations and enter a comment in their public file saying how you feel about them and their censorship, propaganda, and fluff which is not in the public interest. You might even suggest that the FCC does not allow them to renew their frequency or station license.
So the ball is now back in your court.
It is also possible that these foot dragging,spineless election officials are being bought off under the table with money or lucrative employment promises with these same voting machine companies when their public service(used advisedly)comes to an end.
The precedent has certainly been established in this regard(i.e. election officials allowing themselves to be placed in advertising brochures of certain voting machine vendors and various other incarnations of coziness).
Why can’t NJ do what Ohio did and lock the machines up and declare a crime scene?
Fitrakis and Wasserman:
“We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property,” Smith warned.
How can this statement be made in a democracy? That software should be doing only one thing – counting the votes accurately. If Sequoia refuses to prove that that is actually what its machines are doing, then New Jersey just needs to drop them and go to hand counted paper ballots.
The beat goes on. As usual, look who’s running the show in 2008. The familiar face of treasonous lying criminals employed to elect their leaders using the same dirty tactics and the same electronic vote stealing machines. Good to see these loser criminals pirates haven’t moved on because i was counting on them to continue the subversion of our US Democracy without a fight. The 1% elite government control of the US corporate mass media must commended. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebels would have creamed in his Hitlerian wet dreams out of respect to your total Fascist control. In retrospect the twist is that their seems to be a fair number of Jews involved and well we know how Hitler felt about Jewish bankers, so i guess it worked out after all. You fcks are not any better but just like Hitler, you all are a bunch of misdirected murderous losers.
Hey Brad, when i came on the site i saw the banner quote by John Conyers jr. stating something like you’re an important voice in the “alternative media.” To bad he disapeared from receiving the word up. Just a quick brain check. Is it still alternative to get any good people let alone the head of the House Judiciary John Conyers jr to investigate the allegations made by Sibel Edmonds? What about impeaching the entire Bush administration and their accomplices for killing thousands, illegal use of the US military, bankrupting our nation with the illegal Iraqi occupation? Also include bush’s blowjob of Federal World Trade Tower building #7. The 6 second implosion destruction of the 47 story steel concrete building into it’s own footprint had nothing to do with the government insinuation of a 9/11/01 attack by Arab boxcutter armed hijackers. No planes ever touched building #7.
Maybe John Conyers jr. can explain what has held up the impeach of the bush administration for breaking their numerous other crimes, regularly endangering the American people and enduring 7 plus years of forwarding their anti-environmental agenda based on policies written by greedy corporate polluters using junk science? Still using the same electronic computer voting machines in this new election! Way to go Congressman/men!!! Good to see you have been on top of this thing Mr. Conyers jr. since handing out your 101 pg book report about how Ohio was gamed prior to the 109th sellout Congress accepting the rigged electors of OH, Fl, NV, and NM in Jan 2005.
In my life this is interesting how this reality can be perceived as alternative news. Has the word “alternative” been redefined to mean news based on factual truth as opposed to other US media NOT BASED ON TRUTHS ABOUT OUR REALITY? We must get rid of these 2nd rate criminals, the Thor Hearns, their bosses who are the elite 1% treasonous murderous loser destructors. Bush, cheney, rice, rumsfeld, gonzalez, etc. and the 25 high level loser leaders in Washington who took money and setup the sale of nuclear secrets to Pakistan and in turn North Korea and possibly other terrorist groups on the black market named by former FBI Interpreter Sibel Edmonds must all be indicted. Alternative my ace.
Can you be a real leader of the people? When you took an oath to protect the Constitution honorary Congress Conyers jr., was it the US Constitution or was it the bush administration amended power stealing version you signed on for? I don’t care what color these people are or their denomination, and or their sexual preference. The bush administration, their democrat accomplices,and their parasitic criminal converts will be prosecuted in a world court if need be. But, Mr. Conyers, you can save lives and species, and get are country moving in the right direction if you act today.
3/18/2008
Once again, we’re screaming at the voting machine companies and failing to place blame where it belongs: The election officials who signed the contract with Sequoia. Their contract apparently prevents them from turning the machines over to a third party for testing. The election officials signed that contract and agreed to its restrictions. Sequoia then has every right to demand the counties live up to their end of the agreement. Personally, I think voting machine companies should build products they’d be happy to have tested, but the fact is the counties agreed to this restriction and so it is they who should be held accountable. Just to put things in perspective, most software companies, from Microsoft on down, include similar language in their license agreements. There’s nothing unique about this situation, this is standard practice in the software industry.
If we want results, we should be putting the pressure on legislatures and the election officials who carry out their laws — or not. Whining about the vendors who supply products to these officials is not constructive in the long run.