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Ten residents of Mercer County, New Jersey, have taken their complaints to the Superior Courtroom, alleging voters had been severely disenfranchised on account of a collection of errors involving Dominion Voting Methods and its conduct of the 2022 and 2023 elections.
On February 14, the group filed a large 360-page criticism full of proof, detailing the systematic failures that stripped them of their elementary voting rights.
The criticism, accessible from the Wafer Legislation Workplaces, highlights the extent of the mishaps that occurred through the current elections.
The lawsuit highlights that in 2022, a crucial technical error by Dominion Voting Methods triggered all tabulators to turn into inoperable after they didn’t replace poll IDs after the county made modifications to the poll format. This vital oversight was initially stored from the general public by county officers and got here to gentle solely after public insistence at an explanatory listening to.
The criticism presents a chaotic scene on election day, which is made worse by the following heavy dealing with and counting of ballots. The plaintiffs argue that these actions violated the civil, statutory, and constitutional rights of Mercer County voters, thereby invalidating the election outcomes.
In line with the criticism:
In 2022, Mercer County voters had been to vote by paper poll and the ballots had been to be scanned into tabulating machines on the polling place. Nevertheless, tabulating machines didn’t function all through the county on Election Day, November 8, 2022.
Tabulating machines are manufactured by Dominion Voting Machines (“Dominion”). Upon info and perception, the rationale the tabulating machines didn’t work is as a result of Dominion didn’t replace the variety of ballots after the Mercer County Clerk requested a change, so the tabulators didn’t think about the ballots legitimate.
The failure of the tabulating machines solely affected the way in which paper ballots had been collected and tabulated. This could not have an effect on the flexibility of any eligible voter to vote often.
District boards are accountable for tallying, certifying, and reporting election outcomes to the general public, except the county has designated a counting middle to tabulate the votes.
The BOE and the Superintendent of Elections apparently didn’t have protocols in place in case polling place tabulators didn’t work, had failed to coach district board members on what to do within the occasion of a machine malfunction, and had failed to coach county staff. failed to coach and transient district board members on learn how to preserve chain of custody, carry out their statutory duties, and deal with paper ballots in a way in keeping with making certain a safe election.
From the time the polls opened at 6 a.m. till about 8 a.m., voters all through Mercer County had been instructed by district board workers to vote provisionally when they need to have voted by common poll.
Upon info and perception, eligible voters had been instructed to vote by provisional poll by then-Election Superintendent Nathaniel Walker and different Mercer County elections officers to District Board staff.
In consequence, voters' ballots on this time interval had been erroneously topic to further scrutiny of selections by the County Board of Elections and no less than 759 voters had been disenfranchised and disenfranchised on account of “voting by machine” by the defendant BOE. The votes weren’t counted. And every of its defendant commissioners knew that it was unimaginable for these voters to vote by machine.
As a result of there have been no protocols in place for the correct dealing with of paper ballots and since district board workers weren’t educated on learn how to deal with paper ballots, many, maybe most, of the ballots in Mercer County for the 2022 election cycle had been detained. The collection was not preserved.
Total baggage of votes had been misplaced, the luggage and machines containing the ballots weren’t correctly sealed, and no less than 1,500 ballots had been discovered left within the tabulator six days after the election.
The ultimate figures of the election are unknown and unknown. The numbers licensed by Mercer County differ by 1000’s of votes from the numbers reported in state voter historical past information and this discrepancy stays unresolved.
Highlights of the lawsuit relating to the 2022 election embrace:
- Improper processing of provisional ballots and recording errors associated to those ballots resulted within the votes of no less than 759 voters being rejected when they need to have been accepted. These voters had been disadvantaged of their franchise.
- Different voters have no idea whether or not their vote was counted as a result of the digital ballot e book doesn’t present that they’ve checked in.
- Total baggage of votes had been misplaced, the luggage and machines containing the ballots weren’t correctly sealed, and no less than 1,500 ballots had been discovered left within the tabulator six days after the election. The chain of custody was destroyed.
- No tally sheets had been maintained, opposite to state legislation.
- The vote counting was not steady and public, opposite to state legislation.
- There’s a discrepancy of 4,849 votes between the variety of votes reported by the county to the general public and the variety of Election Day votes reported by the county to the state, and this discrepancy has not been resolved.
A spotlight of the orders sought are as follows:
- Higher ballot employee coaching
- Stopping recurrence of all recognized machine and poll e book failures in future elections.
- Public Tallying of Ballots by Kind for the Main and Basic Elections of 2023, 2024 and 2025
Beneath is a duplicate of the criticism: