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Friday, January 18, 2008 Barely 48 hours after the last voting machine was packed up and removed from their courthouse following their Tuesday Voting System Vendors Fair, Northampton County Council voted last evening to purchase 300 used Sequoia Advantage voting machines at a cost of $4550 each to replace their decertified AVS WINvote touchscreens in time for the April Primary. According to an article in this morning's Allentown Morning Call, Council voted 7-1 in favor of the purchase, with Ron Angle opposed and Vice President Wayne Grube absent. Ironically, the hasty decision came the same day that Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey introduced a bill in Congress that would provide federal funds to pay for the Noarthampton machines if a system employing a true voter-verified paper ballot had been chosen. The Sequoia Advantage machines are being purchased to service approximately 190, 429 registered voters in Northampton County. These numbers make the purchase of 300 machines about 177 machines smaller than called for by the rating formula of 400 voters per day made by the Pennsylvania Department of State. In many states, smaller numberx of machines have been known to cause lines to form and voters having to wait to cast a ballot, especially at peak times. The Sequoia Advantage, a 1980s vintage design, has been associated with high levels of undervotes in New Mexico and other states, especially in minority precincts. In 2006 its tabulating software WinEDS had its certification suspended for a number of months when it was found to be unstable during its Pennsylvania Certification exam. A handful of votes was made to jump to over 8000 by examiner Dr. Michael Shamos making a small change in the software code. The system was subsequently reexamined by Dr. Shamos and found to be usable, by to many citizen doubts remain. "I find it very foolish that the Northampton County Council would choose to spend Pennsylvania taxpayer dollars on used machines that have been so problematical elsewhere," said VotePA Executive Director Marybeth Kuznik, "especially when there is pending legislation that would pay for a more modern and auditable optical scan paper ballot system." While the new Holt bill, HR 5036 is an "opt-in" measure to provide funds only to counties that want to participate, Kuznik notes that other pending legislation may soon outlaw Direct Record Electronic machines in favor of paper ballot based systems. "When that happens, and the voters of Northampton have to change voting systems yet again, I hope they will remember and hold these officials accountable for this foolish choice," Kuznik said. ### |