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Judge Orders Voting Machines to Be Opened Following Mistake by Poll Worker

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


A mistake made by a poll worker in New Jersey led a judge to intervene earlier this week.

A judge in Monmouth County, N.J., ordered two voting machines to be opened following the poll worker’s error. The New Jersey Globe reported that the incident occurred in the town of Manalapan. Deputy Attorney General George Cohen noted on Thursday that the unnamed poll worker “inadvertently failed to get vote results” before sealing the machines, the Washington Examiner reported.

The AG added that the poll worker took two USB sticks from the voting machines prior to the results being fully uploaded to them. Officials said they are not sure of the official results because one stick had returns and the other did not. That led Superior Court Judge David Bauman to order Monmouth County Superintendant of Elections authority to open the machines, the report said.

“In New Jersey, a court order is required for election officials to open a machine during the fifteen days after the election.  One Democrat and one Republican will be present,” the New Jersey Globe added.

Cohen told the judge: “The entire process will be bi-partisan.”

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The Western Journal added:

Vote totals released Wednesday showed the two candidates elected to the Township Committee with handy margins over their rivals, according to CentralJersey.com.

Initial results showed the two seats going to Republicans Mary Ann Musich, who had 8,986 votes, and Eric Nelson, who had 8,740 votes. Democrat Jamie Herr received 5,082 votes, while fellow Democrat Lisa Lenn received 5,056 votes.

There have been issues with voting machines again throughout the midterm election cycle.

In early November, for instance, the State Election Board in Georgia asked for the help of the FBI in a criminal investigation into a breach of its systems in Coffee County.

The board highlighted similar breaches in other states and asked to collaborate with the FBI as it also examines communications between officials in Spalding County, Georgia, and SullivanStrickler, the Washington Examiner reported:

The board has received documents that include an “unexecuted engagement agreement” for SullivanStrickler to forensically image voting systems in Spalding County, Georgia, Duffey said. The move represents an escalation by state investigators in Georgia, raising new questions about whether the same group of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach sought access to voting systems in other parts of the state as well.

Duffey said it remains unclear why Spalding County was interested in having SullivanStrickler conduct this kind of work but that the board is investigating whether there is any link to what happened in Coffee County. It is also unclear if voting systems in Spalding County were breached. Duffey noted that he has asked for an update from the FBI regarding the status of its participation in the state-level Georgia probe related to Coffee County but does not yet know what the bureau is doing, if anything, at this time.

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“The conduct in Coffee County is similar to conduct in Antrim County, Michigan, and Clark County, Nevada,” elections board Chairman William Duffey Jr. said.

“We did not image any equipment in Spalding County,” a SullivanStrickler attorney said. “We will continue to cooperate with law enforcement on any investigation as we have done up until now.”

Officials plan to replace voting equipment in the county following “unauthorized access” to it just two months after the 2020 election, the Associated Press reported.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger noted that an investigation into the unauthorized access by former elections officials with Coffee County is ongoing.

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“Anyone who broke the law should be punished to its full extent,” he said in a news release. “But the current election officials in Coffee County have to move forward with the 2022 election, and they should be able to do so without this distraction.”

The FBI announced earlier this month that they have “identified no credible threats” to U.S. election systems as the November midterms loom.

“A month before the anticipated midterm vote, the officials said they were closely monitoring potential threats to election workers in the U.S. after local officials reported a wave of harassment and abuse before and after the contentious 2020 presidential election. Since June 2021, the federal Elections Threat Task Force has reviewed more than 1,000 reports. About 11% of those met the threshold for a federal investigation, so far resulting in four arrests,” the Statesman reported.

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