One man, one voting machine

The main plaintiff in the case, Witherspoon Street-based Coalition for Peace Action (CFPA), is challenging the state’s use of the machines because they do not provide a paper record of votes cast.

“There is no way for the voter to prove that they have cast their votes as intended, nor is there any way to have a recount or audit of the elections,” CFPA chair Irene Goldman explained.

Appel was brought in as an expert witness on voting machine technology when the trial began in 2004. As he leans back in the ergonomic chair in his new office in Sherrerd Hall, he smiles as he explains how he came to own an electronic voting machine.

“I bought one on the internet,” he said.

Appel paid $85 for five machines from Buncombe County in North Carolina. The model is the AVC Advantage made by Sequoia and used by 18 of the 21 counties in New Jersey.

Appel is the first expert to be able to take apart the machines that determine New Jersey’s elections. His latest research on the Sequoia Advantage took place this summer in a locked room in a Trenton police station, as part of a court order to examine the machine’s security. He, along with a team of Princeton computer scientists, ran the first independent audit on these voting machines.

In June 2008, Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg responded to the plaintiff’s demand for an independent audit and Appel was given 30 days to deconstruct and test an “official” Sequoia Advantage and another 30 days to write a report.

On Sept. 24, Feinberg informed the plaintiffs that they could not release their report. She offered little explanation, but Appel said he believes the restraint is caused by a plea from Sequoia.

Feinberg also instructed Sequoia to produce its own audit of the Advantage within 30 days.

Goldman and Appel both said that they believe that the fate of the machines will ultimately be decided in court.

The machines in question have had numerous failures, most recently in the February presidential primary, which saw marked discrepancies in vote tallies, computer science professor Ed Felten said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian shortly after the primary last February.

In the interview, Felten described the scenario with an analogy. “Imagine your pocket calculator couldn’t make up its mind whether 1+13+40+3+4 was 60 or 61. You’d be pretty alarmed, and you wouldn’t trust your calculator until you were very sure it was fixed. Or you’d get a new calculator,” he said.

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Sequoia, however, ascribed the inconsistencies to poll worker error, according to statement issued shortly after the primary.

Appel is not convinced.

“The difference between the paperless [Sequoia machine] and other kinds of voting technologies is that they have the very dangerous potential to miscount the votes without leaving any evidence that they’ve done so,” Appel explained.

Appel’s interest in voting technology took off after the 2000 election, in which thenVice President Al Gore lost to then-Texas Gov. Bush in a controversial election complicated by ballot irregularities in Florida.

After that, computer scientists began to question what else could go wrong with voting technology, Appel explained. As a result, he organized a freshman seminar in fall 2004 on election machinery.

“It seemed like an interesting topic to teach in a year that is a multiple of four,” Appel said.

Appel, who rarely looks you in the eye, has a gravelly voice that never changes in frequency. He becomes most excited when explaining something, lifting his body to sit up straight and making sweeping gestures with his hands. His enthusiasm is subtle, but as he explains his involvement in reforming the electoral process, his passion shows through.

“I believe in the democratic process and that people should have the right to vote, and have the right to have their votes counted accurately,” Appel said.

Appel said he’s spent about a quarter of his time in the last four years researching and reporting for this case. He considers it academic work, he said, but his original interest was sparked by civic involvement.

“It didn’t occur to me how much of a research topic was actually in there,” he said.

Appel said that he plans to continue as a witness for the plaintiff. In the meantime, he has one piece of advice.

“Everybody should go out and vote. Just because those voting machines can be hacked doesn’t mean they probably have been, and if you don’t vote then you’re certainly disenfranchised,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it mattered,” he added.