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An error appears to have been found in a New Jersey election that has changed the result of the contest. A voting tabulation system may have malfunctioned in Monmouth County, NJ, and affected six districts with some votes being counted two times, The NJ Globe reported. The mistake appears to have changed the results of one school board election in Ocean Township.
Election Systems and Software (ES&S), Monmouth County’s voting machine vendor, has acknowledged an error in their vote tabulation system that caused irregularities that were not discovered until an unrelated issue caused the Board of Elections to launch an internal investigation, according to an election official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The company called the issue an “isolated incident that occurred due to a human procedural error. An audit of the system yielded this information.”
In the six voting districts, fail-safes in the tabulation software failed and some results were counted twice, possibly a result of work by the vendor that was completed incorrectly.
“In July of 2022, upon request, ES&S technicians were sent to Monmouth County to investigate reports of slow performance on the county’s internal network. During troubleshooting, technicians uninstalled and reinstalled the county’s election management software,” a spokesperson for the company, Katina Granger, said. “A human procedural error during reinstallation excluded a step, which optimizes the system database and ensures USB flash media cannot be read twice during the results loading process. Because the database was not optimized, the user was not notified when the USB flash media were loaded twice into the results reporting module.”
She said that it happened when a USB flash media was “loaded twice into the results reporting module.”
“There are reports in the system that document these types of actions, and duplication of results can be detected during reporting and canvas procedures. The USB Status Load Report identifies any USB flash media that have been loaded more than once,” she said. “Additionally, poll book data cross-referenced with the ballots cast also shows issues with the number of ballots cast.
She said that ES&S “will reinstall the election management system which will ensure the system is optimized to detect and block duplication of USB flash media results.
“ES&S pledges to work with Monmouth County to ensure all necessary steps are taken to ensure election accuracy,” the spokesperson said.
“There are reports in the system that document these types of actions, and duplication of results can be detected during reporting and canvas procedures. The USB Status Load Report identifies any USB flash media that have been loaded more than once. Additionally, poll book data cross-referenced with the ballots cast also shows issues with the number of ballots cast,” she said.
In the original contest, Steve Clayton defeated Jeffrey Weinstein by 20 votes but the new count shows Weinstein defeating Santos by one vote.
“I will let the process play itself out,” Clayton, the original victor, said. “I’m laser-focused on what the voters sent me to do.”
“I don’t think I was thinking something like this might occur,” Weinstein said, CNN reported. “Every election has its emotional ups and downs, but I didn’t think this would be part of it.
Sussex County Clerk Jeff Parrott said that he was “disappointed and dismayed” that the district attorney did not inform him of the issue.
“Nobody has brought it to my attention. I’m disappointed and dismayed,” he said. “It’s unacceptable to me.”
Democratic state Sen. Vin Gopa wants a federal and state investigation into the issue.
“Reversing the outcome of a race over two months after the election is completely unacceptable and creates an opening for questions about the integrity of elections in Monmouth County, and the state,” he said, InsiderNJ reported.
“Monmouth County, and the state, owes voters complete transparency on how these errors occurred and what steps are being taken to ensure they never repeat.,” he said. “A full investigation of all processes of the County Clerk and Board of Election, in addition to anything relating to the elections process needs to happen immediately.”