Food and discussion begins at 12:30 pm. Everyone invited.

In the February 5th primary election, Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machines in at least five New Jersey counties displayed anomalous results: They reported a difference between the number of Democrats (or Republicans) who voted on a particular machine and the number of Democratic (or Republican) ballots cast on that machine. In Cranford, for example, a machine reported that 55 Republican voters had cast 57 ballots. Printed tapes documenting the anomalies, as well as a published response from Sequoia that offers one possible theory of how they could have arisen, are on the Center’s web site.

The counties wanted to commission our Center to do a study of the anomalies, but Sequoia’s legal threats brought that process to a halt. Ed Felten, who would lead the study, has discussed the anomalies and argued that Sequoia’s explanations thus far are not enough. He will explain the nature of the discrepancies, the vendor’s explanation of the cause, and the larger significance of this incident in the debate over voting technologies generally.