In June 2011, a local Democratic primary in Fairfield Township, Cumberland County, New Jersey, became the epicenter of a dispute over election integrity and the reliability of electronic voting machines. Cynthia Zirkle, a candidate for the Democratic Executive Committee in District 3, along with her husband Ernest Zirkle, the town’s sitting deputy mayor, swiftly challenged the certified results, alleging discrepancies that ultimately uncovered a significant programming error in a paperless voting machine. The case, which recently resurfaced on social media, reignited national discussions about election security and the transparency of voting technology.
The primary election, held on June 7, 2011, involved four candidates vying for two open seats. Official results certified by Cumberland County showed Vivian Henry with 34 votes and Mark Henry with 33 votes, while Ernest Zirkle received 9 votes and Cynthia Zirkle 10. These numbers immediately struck the Zirkles as incorrect, given their deep familiarity with local voters. Cynthia Zirkle personally contacted residents, and her outreach revealed a stark contradiction: 28 voters signed sworn affidavits confirming they had cast their ballots for the Zirkles, not the Henrys.
Armed with these affidavits, the Zirkles filed a petition in Superior Court on June 20, 2011. Their demands were explicit: invalidate the election results, impound the voting machine in question, and mandate paper ballots for any subsequent election. Central to their legal challenge was a Sequoia AVC Advantage Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine, a system that provided no paper receipt or physical record, thereby offering no independent means for voters to verify their selections. The Zirkles' petition directly stated, "The Sequoia AVC Advantage Direct-Recording Electronic Voting Machine utilized at this polling place was obviously not operating properly." Their filing also cited known deficiencies associated with Sequoia equipment, including firmware defects, software bugs, hardware faults, and security vulnerabilities.
Concerns about New Jersey's touchscreen machines were not new. The Coalition for Peace Action (CPA) had previously filed a lawsuit in October 2004, arguing that such paperless systems were unconstitutional due to the lack of assurance that voter selections were accurately captured. Irene Goldman, CPA chairwoman, described the Fairfield situation to NJ.com as "very fishy," underscoring broader anxieties about DRE technology.
The court appointed Dr. Andrew Appel, a computer science professor from Princeton University and a recognized authority on the Sequoia platform, as an expert witness in July 2011. Dr. Appel's investigation confirmed the Zirkles' suspicions: the candidates' names had been transposed on the electronic ballot definition. This meant that votes intended for the Zirkles were recorded for the Henrys, and vice versa, without voters' knowledge.
Cumberland County officials attributed the error to human mistake. Lizbeth Hernandez, the Cumberland County Board of Elections Administrator, submitted a certification acknowledging a programming error, stating she had inadvertently swapped the ballot positions for the Henrys and Zirkles. Hernandez, who had programmed the county’s voting machines since 2008 as a cost-saving measure, stated that voting machine technicians had failed to detect the error before Election Day. However, Dr. Appel's investigation could not definitively determine whether the transposition was a genuine mistake or a deliberate act, noting that an unauthorized individual with either internet or physical access to the WinEDS voting software laptop could have executed the same ballot file swap.
The investigation then encountered a critical obstacle. On August 16, 2011, the day before Dr. Appel was scheduled to examine the county Board of Elections laptop, critical files were deleted. County technician Jason Cossaboon claimed this was routine maintenance to improve the machine's sluggish processing speed, swearing in a signed statement, "At no time did I delete any information concerning the programming of the voting machine." However, Dr. Appel discovered the computer’s history log had been entirely wiped when he arrived the following morning.
Superior Court Judge David Krell expressed strong reservations from the bench, stating he had "suspicions that something that happened here was improper." He subsequently referred the matter to the state Attorney General’s criminal justice division for potential prosecution. Despite this judicial referral, the state criminal investigators reviewed the case and declined to file charges. This decision was noted in court filings by a deputy attorney general who was simultaneously representing county officials in the civil case, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest.
Sam Serata, the Zirkles' attorney, moved for sanctions against the Board of Elections and advocated for an independent investigator. "It smells," Serata told NJ.com, adding, "If this goes on in rural Cumberland County, what must go on in Newark or Jersey City?"
A new election was eventually held on September 27, 2011, in which the Zirkles won by a significant margin. Following her victory, Cynthia Zirkle noted that her campaign had distributed a large number of absentee ballots because, as she stated, "We don’t trust the system." She further elaborated on the broader implications: "Without a verified paper backup trail, there is no way of knowing whether it’s human error. Challenging these machines is virtually impossible. People should at least have assurance that their vote counts."
Despite the judge's suspicions and the clear evidence of a programming error and deleted files, no criminal charges were ever filed, and no official faced prosecution. New Jersey’s paperless voting machines, including the 120 Sequoia AVC Advantage machines then in use in Cumberland County, remained operational across the state. The case concluded with the Zirkles’ vindication at the ballot box, but the fundamental questions surrounding the deleted files and the overall security of paperless electronic voting systems remained unanswered.
