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Sequoia identified four possible causes for the problem, including a transient malfunction of thememory pack reader, which transmits information from the memory cartridge to the tally database,but stated that the voting system event logs would not record any of the possible malfunctions, “makingit impossible to provide a more definitive answer.” 152Nine days after the September primary, the D.C. Council subpoenaed information about the votingmachines’ source code from Sequoia so that it could conduct a more thorough investigation. 153According to the Washington Post, Sequoia objected to this request on the grounds that it constitutedtrade secrets or otherwise protected material. 154 The vendor also objected to the Council’s request for alldocuments related to any irregularities in similar voting systems, stating that it had no documentationof such incidents. 155The Post reported that when the Council persisted in its attempts to get the information, the company askedfor a $20 million bond to guarantee confidentiality. 156 According to board officials, the company still hadnot responded to the subpoena as of late April 2009. 157 In April, theCouncil filed a motion in the District of Columbia Superior Courtto attempt to force the company to comply with the subpoena.“as it is now, there’s little158On June 5, under a protective order from a Superior Court Judge,communication between Sequoia agreed to release the source code for the voting system. 159When news of the agreement broke, Councilwoman Mary Chehjurisdictions, so vendors said, “they fought us tooth and nail until now.” 160hold all the cards.”The findings of the District of Columbia investigation will soondistrict of columbiabe made public. In the interim, the Council passed electionreform legislation that includes a ‘warranty provision’ requiringcouncilmember mary cheh any vendor that sells voting systems to the District to “[p]romptlyand fully disclose any flaw, defect, or vulnerability in the votingsystem of which the vendor is aware or becomes aware” and toremedy the problem appropriately. 161While this bill will help D.C. election officials get needed information about voting system defects inthe future, Councilmember Mary Cheh still sees a need for a centralized, national database. “It wasdifficult for us to get the information we needed in D.C. If we were in a smaller, more fragmented, orpolitically divided jurisdiction, it would have been even harder for us to get necessary information inan expeditious fashion,” said Cheh. “As it is now, there’s little communication between jurisdictions, sovendors hold all the cards.” 16213. New Jersey, February 2008• • •According to a public records request for results obtained by researchers at Princeton University,thirty-eight Sequoia AVC Advantage DRE voting machines in eight New Jersey counties experiencedanomalies during the February 5, 2008 primary election. 163 A county official initially discovered theproblem by comparing machine counter totals with the paper printouts produced by the machines atthe close of the polls. 164 The county alerted other counties, which do not routinely reconcile these twototals, to the potential malfunction. 165 The Times of Trenton reported that the problem initially appeared22 | Brennan Center for Justice