Reply #23: NJ: Voting machines' paper backup delayed until January

[Mnemosyne]

Voting machines' paper backup delayed until January

By Michael Rispoli • GANNETT STATE BUREAU • February 22, 2008

TRENTON — New voter-verified electronic voting machines with backup paper ballots are on the verge of being delayed yet again, this time until January 2009, making them unavailable for the presidential election in November.

Attorney General Anne Milgram said Sequoia Voting Systems, which has 10,000 machines in 19 of the state's 21 counties, informed her the machines would not be able to be fitted with the backup paper receipts in time for the June 3 deadline.

"It's frustrating for me to wait the additional six months ... but I think what we will have come out of it is a far better machine and a far better system," Milgram said.

Milgram said Sequoia has passed a second round of testing by the New Jersey Institute of Technology but that federal testing has slowed the process. As a result, the machines aren't yet able to be retrofitted with printers that would generate receipts voters can look at to verify the machine recorded their choices correctly.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080222/NEWS0301/802220404