OK, this is an odd story developing out of New Jersey. Ed Felton from Princeton has received a thinly veiled threat from the manufacturer of an e-voting machine, Sequoia Voting Systems. The state of NJ had apparently made it known that they were going to furnish Ed with one of the machines to test as they had concerns with it. Now, I’m no fan of e-voting. That whole lack of an audit trail makes me squeamish. Call me old fashioned. Things turned strange when an email was sent to Felton from the vendor. Here is a reprint from Felton’s site in case it happens to get taken down.
Sender: Smith, Ed [address redacted]@sequoiavote.com
To: felten@cs.princeton.edu, appel@princeton.edu
Subject: Sequoia Advantage voting machines from New Jersey
Date: Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 6:16 PMDear Professors Felten and Appel:
As you have likely read in the news media, certain New Jersey election officials have stated that they plan to send to you one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines for analysis. I want to make you aware that if the County does so, it violates their established Sequoia licensing Agreement for use of the voting system. Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property.
Very truly yours,
Edwin Smith
VP, Compliance/Quality/Certification
Sequoia Voting Systems
Interesting reaction.