Expert: Voting machines easily altered

[kpete]

Expert: Voting machines easily altered
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
BY ELISE YOUNG
NorthJersey.com
TRENTON BUREAU

A Princeton University professor demonstrated in court today how New Jersey’s most widely used voting machines can be opened with a screwdriver and their computer chips swapped by hand.

“The machines are large and heavy. They’re left in the polling places for a few days until a trucking company can pick them up,” Andrew W. Appel, a computer-science professor, testified. “Many of the polling sites are unlocked. Anyone … can open it up and replace the software inside with fraudulent software.”

The trial, in Superior Court in Mercer County, pits voting-rights activists against state election officials. Judge Linda R. Feinberg will decide whether the machines, the Sequoia Advantage, are unreliable and, therefore, unconstitutional, as the activists claimed in a lawsuit.

About 10,000 Sequoia Advantage models are used in 18 of 21 counties. Election officials and the manufacturer, Sequoia Voting Systems of California, say the equipment does its job consistently and accurately. They say New Jerseyans’ votes are recorded correctly.

more at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/elections/votingmachines012809.html

[Kurovski]

1. Kick. (nt)

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thanks for posting! Wonderful activists in New Jersey! nt