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Vote Machine Maker: Not Our Fault  (NJ)
WAYNE PARRY   Associated Press  07 November 2007

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - The largest provider of electronic voting machines in New Jersey said Wednesday it was not to blame for a computer foul-up that delayed the counting of votes in Atlantic County until early morning, long after the polls had closed.

Howard Cramer, vice president of sales for California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, put the blame on Atlantic County's computer system.

"We helped them walk through a system configuration issue," he said Wednesday afternoon. "Once it was identified and corrected, they were in good shape. Sometimes trying to track down those issues can take a little bit of time."

He said Sequoia's software worked properly.

At issue, Cramer said, was the county's server - a computer that controls the functions of other voting machines. Electronic cartridges, which store vote counts from each machine, are placed into a reader, which sends the data to the server. The server then compiles the results, Cramer said.

Asked if Atlantic County had made a programming error, Cramer said, "I don't know."

John Mooney, Atlantic County's elections superintendent, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Sequoia's claims Wednesday afternoon.

But David Wald, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, said the company's claims sounded correct. About 10,000 Sequoia machines are used statewide in New Jersey.

"It's logical because nobody else had this problem," he said. "We haven't heard anything that contradicts Sequoia's assertions."

The number of votes on each of the Atlantic County machines was properly recorded and tallied. But there was a problem in transferring that data from the individual machines to a central database that counted up all the votes, Mooney said.

Although candidates had claimed victory and conceded Tuesday night, official results were first released around 3 a.m. Wednesday, long after the polls had closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday and long after other results had been reported.

In the 2nd District Senate race which includes Atlantic City, Democratic Assemblyman James Whelan beat incumbent Republican Sen. James "Sonny" McCullough 57 percent to 43 percent.

Also in the 2nd District, Republicans John Amodeo and Vince Polistina each secured 28 percent of votes to beat Democrats Blondell Spellman, who received 21 percent, and Joe Wilkins, who garnered 23 percent. There was no incumbent in that district.

Candidates were able to claim victory or concede defeat by doing their own unofficial counts of results from each polling place, Wald said.

Each voting machine records votes on a data cartridge, which is backed up by a paper tape.

"You hit a button that tells you the total from each machine," Wald said. "It's like a cash register receipt."

The problem was in electronically transferring vote totals from the individual cartridges to a central database, Mooney said.

It is common practice on Election Night for political parties to post volunteers, called challengers, at each polling place. When voting ends and results are manually tabulated from each machine, the volunteers see the number, write it down and call it in to party headquarters, where tallies are added up and projections of victory or defeat are made.

That's how Whelan knew he was headed for victory, said his campaign manager, Raiyan Syed.

The voting machine problem "wasn't that big of a deal," he said. "We had challengers at each precinct, and we got reporting back from them. They were there when the machines were closed, got the numbers and phoned them in.

"We knew Whelan was up by a huge margin and was going to win," Syed said. "That's why McCullough conceded."

Syed said Whelan had no complaint with the way the results were handled.

"The integrity of the process was protected, and every vote was counted," he said. "At the end of the day, that's what's important."

Wald said Attorney General Anne Milgram is concerned about the glitch and wants to make sure something similar doesn't happen again. But she does not consider the incident cause to rethink the use of electronic voting machines in New Jersey, he said.

Atlantic County wasn't the only place with voting problems.

Camden County also had difficulties when cartridges containing data from eight voting machines were not removed from the machines and taken to the county's Board of Elections to be tallied, county Superintendent of Elections Phyllis Pearl.

The machines, in six different towns, are not believed to contain enough votes to change the outcome of any race, Pearl said Wednesday.

Unless absentee and provisional ballots change that assessment, Pearl said she would not seek a court order to get the cartridges. A court order is needed because all voting machines are impounded for 15 days following an election.

Three of the machines were in Camden, and one each in Cherry Hill, Gloucester City, Oaklyn, Pennsauken and Winslow, she said.

Associated Press writer Jeffrey Gold contributed to this story.



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