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to be with the turnout totals – while all votes seemed to be correctly recorded, the total number ofindividuals who cast votes for each party appeared to be slightly off. 166 Sequoia inspected the equipmentand concluded that the problem was poll worker error, not equipment malfunction. 167 In early March,the company issued a technical bulletin advising users of the machine on how to protect against thiserror in the future. 168In March, several counties decided to enlist a team of Princeton computer scientists to conduct anindependent study on the equipment used in the February primary. After the counties’ intent to handover their voting machines for assessment became known, one of the researchers who was set to conductthe analysis reported on his blog that he received an e-mail from Sequoia stating that the companywill “take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reportsregarding the same, or any other infringement of [its] intellectual property.” 169 The Star-Ledger reportedthat at least one county which subsequently backed the effort received a letter from Sequoia statingthat conducting an independent investigation would violate the licensing agreement between thevendor and the county, and threatening to sue if the county proceeded with the inquiry. 170 In addition,that same month, advocates at the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic issued a subpoena for thenecessary information to conduct an independent analysis, including the machines’ source code, buildtools, operator manuals, and maintenance manuals. 171 According to the Princeton researchers’ finalreport, Sequoia “vigorously protested” sharing its source code on grounds of defending its intellectualproperty and it took “months of litigation” to negotiate a protective order under which Sequoia wouldshare the information. 172 In May, a Superior Courtjudge issued a protective order permitting the teamof Princeton researchers to examine two of the DREs officials in montgomery county,used in the February primary but preventing thedisclosure of “any conclusions or comments” about pennsylvania, an avc advantagethe machines resulting from the investigation. 173county located less than fifty milesIn June, after the plaintiffs who issued the subpoenafrom the new jersey border, toldand researchers conducting the assessment refusedto sign the protective order on the grounds that it the philadelphia inquirer that theyviolated their speech rights and academic freedom,the judge who issued the initial protective order were unaware of the problems thatreversed her ruling with respect to the non-disclosurehad occurred in new jersey.of the researchers’ findings. 174 The results of thereleased independent analysis showed the researchersconcluded that on all but one of the thirty-eight machines that malfunctioned during the primary, thenumber of votes for candidates of a certain party exceeded the number of individuals who voted on thatparty’s ballot. 175 Some machines logged more votes for Democrats than Democratic voters, and otherslogged more votes for Republicans than the number of Republican voters. 176 The researchers concludedthat it would be “easy and natural” for poll workers to make the mistake that triggered the programmingerror that produced incorrect vote totals. Some voters were effectively disenfranchised by this error. Thosewho received the wrong party’s ballot could not choose a candidate of their own party as was their legalright, and write-in votes for their chosen party were not counted because it is unlawful for a voter to votein the primary election of a party to which she does not belong. 177 Furthermore, the researchers identifiedserious insecurities in the machines, and stated that the machines could be quickly and imperceptiblyhacked to steal votes by anyone with “only ordinary training” in computer science. 178Brennan Center for Justice | 23