When it comes to the court of law, having a secure and methodical procedure for jurors to follow is crucial when working towards a verdict. Ideally, the role of a juror is to determine the facts of a case with absolute honesty, rationality, and sound judgement without fear of being “pressured” or “herded” towards a certain conclusion. Since November, the New Jersey Courts have been exploring new ways to do just that – adopting Meridia’s electronic voting software and clickers to be used in their court sessions. The implementation of electronic voting allows jurors to vote anonymously with a button press while maintaining a high level of accuracy and speed, aiding the courts in the decision making process.
The New Jersey Courts have incorporated the clickers in two steps of their procedure, with the first being used by the Jurors to determine if the case should move forward. The prosecutor then presents the case, the law under which the defendant should be tried and the arguments against the defendant. Then the prosecutor and the court staff leave (or the jurors retire to another room) and the jurors deliberate on how to proceed. When they return, they vote again with the clickers on how they decided.
The second vote is conducted using a five-point scale, where a juror can vote “True Bill” meaning that the juror believes that a crime was committed and the case should move forward towards a trial, “No Bill” meaning the juror believes a crime was not committed and therefore should not go to trial, “No Bill remand” meaning a lesser crime was committed and should be degraded to a community service or misdemeanor charge, “Absent” where the clerk pushes the button for the juror indicating that they were not present, and “Recused” where a juror indicates they cannot/should not vote because they know the defendant, the other side, or have a potential conflict of interest in the case. EZ-VOTE keypads make the process of voting for any of these five options incredibly simple, as each option is assigned to its own dedicated button on the keypad which only needs to be pressed once for the vote to be recorded. The compact form of the keypad and its display allow jurors to vote anonymously should they choose to do so, protecting the integrity of the vote.
