DC Council Special Committee asks judge to enforce subpoena <http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/04/dc-council-special-committee-asks-judge-to-enforce-subpoena.html>http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/04/dc-council-special-committee-asks-judge-to-enforce-subpoena.html
A special D.C. Council committee investigating widespread errors in two primary elections last year asked a D.C. Superior Court judge yesterday to enforce a subpoena against the company that provides voting machines to the District. Lawyers from Jenner & Block and Hunton & Williams, who are representing the committee, argue that Sequoia Voting Systems voting machines failed during primary elections held on Feb. 12 and Sept. 9, and source code and other voting materials will show whether "sleeper glitches" are to blame for "glaring errors." One of the errors mentioned in court filings are election returns that showed nearly 4,759 votes were cast in the Sept. 9 primary election in Precinct 141 even though the precinct has only 2,388 registered voters. Lorelie Masters, a partner at Jenner & Block representing the special committee, tells the BLT that similar errors were replicated in several other precincts. She adds that outside of Sequoia's software failing, "there's no logical explanation for how these anomalies occurred." On Sept. 18, the special committee slapped Sequoia with a subpoena to obtain documents and other materials, including the source code data. Sequoia, which has provided voting materials and machines to the District for over 20 years, has so far refused to comply with the subpoena, saying that the materials either aren’t relevant or are proprietary. In court filings, Masters says the special committee has tried to reach a compromise with Sequoia, offering to have the source code data sealed under a protective order. But Sequoia fired back that the District must post a $20 million bond before it would turn over source code data. Masters says, "I've never seen anything like this happen before, and the special committee obviously did not pursue it." The company has argued previously that the fault lies not with its software or equipment, but on "some type of electrical or static discharge that might have taken place." In a statement, Councilmember Mary Cheh, chairwoman of the Council Board of Elections and Ethics Investigation special committee, says "Sequoia has no legal justification for its position." "Sequoia's source code is critical to our investigation," Cheh says. "We can[t move forward without it. The special committee has spoken to all of the people who ran the election, now we need to look at the software that administered it." In addition to Masters, the team of lawyers representing the special committee includes Jenner & Block associates Kristina Filipovich, Caroline Lopez, Damien Specht and Nicholas Stephanopoulos. Hunton & Williams has partner Virginia Albrecht and associates Aaron Flynn, and E. Carter Chandler Clements working on the case. Sequoia does not have a lawyer listed on the docket. A spokeswoman for Sequoia was out of the office, and did not immediately return voicemails. Posted by Jeff Jeffrey on April 24, 2009 at 02:57 PM in <http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/dc_courts_and_government/>D.C. Courts and Government --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to newsfromunderground-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
