Essex County Pays $3.8M For New Voting Machines As Election Nears

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Essex County is investing $3.8 million to buy new voting machines as a way to safeguard future elections, officials announced Thursday.

During their meeting earlier this week, the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders approved a resolution that will pay for about 750 new voting booths and related equipment. The new machinery includes a new twist – optical scanners – and will be able to provide paper ballots.

The new machines are expected to be operational for the 2020 general election, a freeholder spokesperson told Patch.

Read the full resolution.

Dominion Voting Systems Inc. was awarded a $3.8 million contract for the new equipment on the recommendation of the Office of the Commissioner of Registration and Superintendent of Elections.

The freeholders offered a joint statement about their resolution:

“In the wake of allegations of voter tampering and in context of the 2016 election that many believed was hijacked, protective measures guarding the integrity of the voting process needed to be implemented. Additionally, further information supports the vulnerability that electronic voting machines may potentially compromise the voting process. Voting machines with paper ballots that are read by optical scanners are said to be the least vulnerable to a cyber-attack and offer a paper record that can be audited for further safeguarding.”

The purchase of the new machines comes at the request of several voter advocacy groups including SOMA Action’s Voting Rights Committee and BlueWaveNJ, who have been expressing concern for the past year and a half, the freeholders said.

David Harris, co-chair of SOMA Action Voter Rights, praised the forthcoming purchase.

“Voting machines are the infrastructure of our democracy,” Harris said. “The vote by the Freeholders on Tuesday evening was a victory for democracy. The SOMA Action Voter Rights Committee is gratified and encouraged, not only by the result, but also by the process by which it was achieved. Citizens advocated and educated; public officials listened and acted.”

“This is the way democracy should work,” Harris added.

• See related article: New Jersey Restores Voting Rights To People On Parole, Probation

Freeholder President Brendan Gill, a Montclair resident, said the use of optical scanners and hand-written ballots will help to “ensure the integrity of the voting process” in Essex County.

Gill has previously campaigned for bringing the county up-to-snuff when it comes to election day technology.

“Many times in business, efficiency is a goal that we strive for,” Gill recently wrote. “The axioms, ‘don’t work harder, work smarter’ and ‘do more with less’ are often applied. However, the elections that maintain our democracy are not a business. The sanctity of our elections is a fundamental tenant of our way of life that must be protected and upheld. Taking shortcuts on this process, and maintaining the status quo, cannot be used as reasons to stick with a voting model that is clearly outdated.”

Here’s why paper ballots are still so important in the digital age, Gill added:

“In the 1980s and 90s, the majority of states in the nation began using electronic voting machines that employed a Direct Recording Electronic touchscreen (DREs) to tabulate and record the votes of individual citizens. The technique was faster and easier to administer than paper ballots, and was generally considered an improvement from the previous method. But as technology continued to evolve, it soon became apparent that the results generated by these machines could be altered through hacking and software manipulation. And without a paper ballot to verify the candidate that each individual intended to vote for, officials in charge of elections began to realize that these machines compromised the entire process.”

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