His team spent weeks testing two machines from Union County on behalf of the plaintiffs in a 4-year-old voting rights case before Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg in Trenton. The machines were manufactured by Sequoia Voting System, which objected to the testing, arguing it could put their trade secrets at risk.
Feinberg took the extraordinary step of allowing the examination after officials in Bergen, Gloucester, Middlesex, Mercer, Ocean and Union counties reported discrepancies in the February presidential primary tallies. The glitches did not affect the candidates' results, merely the numbers of Republicans and Democrats casting ballots.
"But as a matter of basic policy -- of running a democracy -- the public and legislators who want to know the basic facts about the reliability of their elections need to be able to read reports such as this one," Appel wrote in his blog.
The tests began around June 30 and the results were expected to be available at the end of September.
Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi said that without the independent analysis she is urging voters to "seriously consider" using absentee ballots. New laws allow voters to use absentee ballots regardless of whether they are out of state on election day.
She already ordered 30,000 absentee ballots -- double the ordinary supply -- and put a video up on her website explaining how to apply.
Absentee ballots are read by electronic optical scanners, Rajoppi explained. "If there is any question about the ballot, it can be hand-counted so there is a verifiable record," she said, while conceding it could severely hamper reporting results quickly.
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