New Jersey: Local governments oppose early voting legislation | NorthJersey.com

Legislation ensuring every resident in the state the right to vote 15 days before certain elections awaits Governor Christie’s signature, and municipal officials in northwest Bergen County are holding their collective breath. "This is going to cause pure havoc," said Waldwick Borough Clerk Paula Jaegge, who was initially concerned that every municipality would be required to provide polling locations. "We would have to reschedule meetings and juggle a lot of things around to make this work for that long a time period." An amendment to the bill, which cleared its last legislative hurdle last week, instead would require seven polling locations in Bergen, a figure based on its population. The county Board of Elections would be responsible for determining where the polling locations would be. Even so, many are questioning the need for it at all. "We already have it," said state Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Cresskill, who represents District 39, which includes Ramsey, Mahwah and Oakland. "We have early voting through vote by mail. This just creates a whole series of expenses, more government layers."

New Jersey: Bill to allow voting more than two weeks before Election Day passes Senate | NJ.com

A bill to allow residents to cast votes at polling places starting 15 days before Election Day is one step closer to reaching the governor’s desk. The Senate today voted 24-16 to pass the early voting bill (S2364), which would let voters cast their ballots early until the Sunday before the election. State Sen. Nia Gill (D-Essex) said she wants to encourage residents’ participation in democracy. “Early voting would ensure that even in an emergency, just as a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy, or in case of unforeseen personal scheduling conflicts, residents will still be able to get to the polls and exercise their most fundamental right to vote.”

New Jersey: Voting machines vulnerable, groups tell judges | NorthJersey.com

The state’s voting machines are so vulnerable to tampering and error that it’s impossible to tell whether ballots are counted properly, a coalition of civil rights groups told an appellate panel Tuesday in a long-running case that has drawn national attention from computer security experts and voting officials. The three judges must decide whether to order the state to replace tens of thousands of electronic voting machines with newer technology designed to be more secure. The problem, advocates say, isn’t just theoretical: Voting machine irregularities caused a Superior Court judge to throw out a South Jersey election in 2011. Critics say it’s impossible to determine whether that was an isolated incident.

New Jersey: Lawyers: Voting machines could be hacked, should be replaced | NJ.com

Voting rights lawyers said today some of New Jersey’s digital voting machines must be replaced because they are vulnerable to hackers who could change the outcome of elections. "We are in a state that values and prizes the right to vote," Penny Venetis, a law professor at Rutgers University-Newark, told a three-judge appeals court panel in Trenton. "We believe that this court should review the record anew and look at the science very carefully." Continuing a fight that has lasted nearly a decade, Venetis wants the appeals court to overrule a lower court judge who allowed counties across New Jersey to continue using the computerized voting systems. Venetis said the systems leave no paper trail, complicating recounts in any instance where fraud or mistakes happen. She said it would not be difficult for a computer hacker to gain access to a machine and change its software to register votes for one candidate over another. "You can press what you think is candidate A’s button and it registers a vote for candidate B," she said. But the state argued that there is no perfect system, paperless machines do not present "a severe restriction on the right to vote" and replacing the equipment will simply cost too much.

New Jersey: Rutgers–Newark Law Professor to Argue Case Against Flawed Electronic Voting Machines | Rutgers Today

On Tuesday March 5, 2013, Professor Penny Venetis of the Rutgers School of Law–Newark Constitutional Litigation Clinic will argue before the New Jersey Appellate Division and ask the court to decertify New Jersey’s insecure computerized voting machines. The case, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, Stephanie Harris, Coalition for Peace Action, etc. vs. Gov. Chris Christie, will be heard in Trenton beginning at 11:30 am. The clinic filed a lawsuit in 2004 charging that the voting machines violated the constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, as well as voting rights statutes. New Jersey passed “gold standard” legislation in 2005 and 2008 to require computerized voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper ballot. However, the State has yet to implement these statutes, leaving more than 5.5 million voters unprotected each Election Day. New Jersey is one of only six states that use computerized voting machines which cannot be audited.

New Jersey: Battered by Sandy, New Jersey Tries Email Voting with Mixed Results | Governing.com

When Superstorm Sandy wiped out a good chunk of the New Jersey shore just prior to the presidential elections last November, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration issued a directive allowing displaced citizens and first responders to vote electronically. Casting an email or fax vote may seem easy enough, but for some citizens and county election offices, the process wasn’t a walk in the park. Technology wasn’t a problem -- procedures for voting electronically were already established so that military members and other overseas personnel could receive their ballots and vote by email. But preparing to receive votes from the general populace took around-the-clock efforts from county election staff already battered by the effects of Sandy. While the top of the ballots that contained federal election choices was already completed because of overseas voters, New Jersey counties had to extend those ballots to include the local races for each voter, which took time. But once that was done, sending out ballots and then qualifying people to vote electronically was a big challenge.

New Jersey: Democrats’ Bill Would Have New Jersey Offer Early Voting Option | njtoday.net

An Assembly panel today advanced a Democrat-sponsored bill that would allow early voting  in primary and general elections. The bill (A-3553) aims to give residents more voting alternatives following the Election Day woes created by Hurricane Sandy. “People are busy, and many have long work days or responsibilities that prevent them from hitting the polls on Election Day,” said Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), one of the bill’s sponsors. “Then there are natural disasters that we simply can’t plan for. Sandy threw a wrench into the machinery of Election Day and created tremendous confusion. This is a matter of convenience and ensuring every resident who is registered and wants to vote will have the opportunity to do so.”

New Jersey: Democrats hit with $42,000 fine for robo calls in ’09 governor’s race | NorthJersey.com

The New Jersey Democratic Party has paid more than $42,000 to settle allegations that it improperly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a series of controversial automated campaign calls meant to pull support from Chris Christie in his 2009 campaign against former Gov. Jon Corzine. The party had faced more than $200,000 in fines stemming from the six in-kind contributions, which totaled $227,120.64, most of which were used to pay for automated phone calls, known as robo calls, that supported third-party candidate Chris Daggett, who was seen as drawing votes away from Christie.

New Jersey: Man charged in Essex County voter fraud case sentenced to 5 years in prison | NJ.com

The last defendant in a voter fraud case that once threatened some of Essex County's most prominent politicians was sentenced today to five years in state prison, the state Attorney General's Office said. John Fernandez, 61, of Belleville, who worked for the Essex County Department of Economic Development, was ordered to forfeit his job and was permanently barred from public employment in the state, the office said in a news release.

New Jersey: Electronic voting after Sandy “A Complete Mess,” says senate president Sweeney | newjerseynewsroom.com

New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney said New Jersey’s county clerks were not properly prepared to handle the state’s requests for election ballots after Hurricane Sandy. Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno allowed state residents affected by the storm to vote through e-mail or fax. Sweeney says county clerks told him they received thousands of requests for ballots in days leading up to the election. “There was no communication with local elections officials,” Sweeney told the Huffington Post. “It was a complete mess." A spokesman for Guadagno said the decision was necessary because of the devastation of the storm.

New Jersey: Everyone Counts Secures 10-Year, Multimillion-Dollar Contract | San Diego Business Journal

Everyone Counts, a locally based provider of software as a service voting systems, recently received a 10-year contract from New Jersey to design the state’s voter registration system. The company’s eLect Registrator technology is based on its eLect Platform, which provides multiple layers of security, military-grade encryption of ballots and the ability to audit the system at any time, according to the company website.

New Jersey: Sussex County election boards finally get ballots to add up | NJ.com

The election boards in each of New Jersey's 21 counties have certified their election results with the state. Many elections officials, however, expect they'll be adjusting the totals for some time as provisional and federal overseas ballots continue to trickle into their offices. There aren't enough outstanding late provisional ballots to alter the results of the Robert Menendez/Joe Kyrillos Senate race or the Barack Obama/Mitt Romney Presidential election. But for local races, such as school board and council elections, incoming ballots could make a difference. In Cumberland County, some of the unofficial election results—from polling places—were overturned by the addition of mail-in and provisional ballot counts. Meanwhile, Gloucester County and Morris County results remained unchanged.

New Jersey: Morris County closes out election after getting bombarded with mail, email, fax, provisional ballots | NJ.com

The votes are in. Finally. Morris County has certified its election, putting to rest most lingering doubts about who won what in an unconventional, post-Sandy election that saw a record number of mail-in votes and, for the first time, ballots sent by email and fax. The county had until Tuesday to certify the election, under an extension given by the state. Nearly 70 percent of Morris County's registered voters took part in the election — with nearly 6 percent casting mail-in ballots (which includes the emailed and faxed ballots, as well as any cast early at county offices). Most of the rest showed up at the polls, even though several polling stations were moved as communities and utility companies scrambled to restore power after the superstorm. "One way or another, it's done," said Tony DeSimone, IT administrator for the Morris County Board of Elections.

New Jersey: Rutgers–Newark Law Clinic Examines E-Voting in Wake of Superstorm Sandy | Rutgers News

The Rutgers School of Law–Newark Constitutional Litigation Clinic has served Open Public Records (OPRA) requests to New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno’s office and to all 21 New Jersey counties for information about the processing of ballots of voters displaced by Superstorm Sandy. The clinic seeks to determine whether any voters were disenfranchised on Election Day because of Internet voting and the confusion caused by emergency voting directives. Candidates are concerned as well. At least 75 elections still hinge on votes cast by displaced voters. In the wake of the storm, Lt. Gov. Guadagno issued a directive allowing displaced voters to vote by fax, email, and through the Internet. “Although emergency action was warranted, Internet and email voting was not the solution,” said Clinical Professor Penny Venetis, co-director of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic. “New Jersey law does not permit Internet voting.”

New Jersey: Wisniewski Will Introduce Bill Allowing Early Voting In New Jersey | njtoday.net

Seeking to give residents more voting alternatives following the Election Day woes created by Superstorm Sandy, Assembly Deputy Speaker John S. Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) will introduce a bill creating an early voting option for primary and general elections in New Jersey. “People are busy. Many have long work days or other responsibilities that prevent them from hitting the polls on Election Day. Then there are the natural disasters that we simply can’t plan for. Sandy threw a wrench into the machinery of Election Day and created tremendous confusion in some counties,” said Wisniewski. “This is a matter of convenience and ensuring that every resident who is registered and wants to vote will have the opportunity to do so. The right to vote and participate in the democratic process is one of our most sacred rights. We should give residents every chance to exercise it.”

New Jersey: Group requests information on how fax, e-mail voters were processed | NJ.com

A group of constitutional experts at Rutgers University want to know how fax and e-mail ballots were processed after Hurricane Sandy, and if any voters were disenfranchised as a result of widespread confusion. The Rutgers School of Law-Newark Constitutional Litigation Clinic said today it has sent public records requests to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno's office and all 21 counties for information on how the ballots were handled. The clinic claims 75 elections in New Jersey still hinge on votes cast by displaced voters.

New Jersey: Email voting a casualty in Sandy’s wake | Politico.com

Storm-battered New Jersey’s first-in-the-nation decision to accept ballots by email is shaping up to be a model for how not to conduct Internet-based voting. The problems that arose — confusing rules, a laborious verification process and an ongoing tabulation headache — could invalidate many of the more than 10,000 ballots from people who believe they voted electronically. “My email began to run off the charts all day that Sunday, Monday and Tuesday,” Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella said. “We were getting so many requests, we could not open them quickly enough, print out the applications and have our staff answer them all.”

New Jersey: Slammed by Sandy, New Jersey counties seek more time to count ballots | Philadelphia Inquirer

Fourteen New Jersey counties, swamped with provisional and mail-in ballots in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, on Tuesday were granted more time to count. Those counties, including Burlington, Camden and Gloucester, have until next week to certify the results of the Nov. 6 election. That means a few close local races in towns such as Stratford, Laurel Springs, Delanco, Bordentown, and Moorestown will remain undecided a while longer. "Election offices are bombed here" because of overseas and provisional ballots, Camden County Election Commissioner Robert Venuti said Tuesday. The county has yet to start counting those ballots, he said.

New Jersey: Legislation to create early voting system introduced in Senate | NorthJersey.com

New Jersey voters could cast their ballots starting 15 days before an election under legislation introduced today by Sen. Nia Gill, D-Essex. The bill creates an early voting system, which some legislators and election experts say could have reduced the confusion caused when superstorm Sandy hit a week before this year’s election. Polling places would be open for eight hours a day, seven days a week starting 15 days before Election Day. Early voting would end two days before the election. People who want to vote early would go to a polling place and cast their ballots just like they would on Election Day itself. The legislation would apply to primary and general elections.

New Jersey: E-ballot count a challenge for local election officials | NJ.com

Two weeks after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the state and 10 days after the election, county election officials are still counting ballots, hoping to make their election certification deadline next Wednesday. Thanks to high voter turnout and an unprecedented set of voting opportunities, election officials in New Jersey’s 21 counties are trying to certify thousands of ballots cast by email and fax. “We followed the requirement that was set forth by the Lieutenant Governor,” said Robert Pantina, the Bergen County Clerk Chief of Staff. “The only reason for a rejection would be if the signatures did not match or if we couldn’t find the voter in the state registration system.”

New Jersey: Ballot count continues two weeks after election | New Jersey Herald

The book on "Election Fortnight 2012" will be closed Wednesday as the Sussex County Board of Elections finishes counting paper ballots and the county clerk submits the certified vote to the secretary of state. Normally a quick and relatively easy process, even in a presidential election year, the 2012 vote was complicated and extended by Hurricane Sandy and the state's efforts to ensure anyone who was eligible to vote, got a chance to vote.

New Jersey: Counties must approve e-mail ballot requests if voters can prove technical problems | NJ.com

A state Superior Court judge has ordered county clerks statewide to accept and process applications for fax and e-mail ballots if voters can prove they tried to ask for one Tuesday but were met with busy signals, error messages or no response at all. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey obtained the order Wednesday because applications for electronic ballots were due by 5 p.m. on Election Day, but many voters had technical problems submitting their request to county elections offices.

New Jersey: Storm Victims Struggled to Have Their Votes Counted | ABC News

Displaced victims of the storm-ravaged New Jersey coastline faced a new challenge on Tuesday, as their attempts to vote in person, by email, and by fax failed. New Jersey, at the last minute and prompted by the displacement of residents from superstorm Sandy, was the first state to ever allow electronic voting for a significant portion of its population. Other states have allowed some electronic voting for military members or overseas residents in the past. The effort in New Jersey on Tuesday, however, showed the difficulties of maintaining an orderly and efficient election when phone lines and inboxes are overwhelmed with voter requests. "This is an unprecedented disaster," Essex County clerk Chris Durkin told the Montclair Times. "People will be disenfranchised because of this unprecedented disaster."

New Jersey: State extends email voting to Friday | POLITICO.com

The election will last until Friday — at least for some voters in New Jersey. State officials announced Tuesday afternoon that they will continue to accept email and fax ballots through Friday night, after election supervisors there reported they were overwhelmed by requests from voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy. The state is seen as securely enough in Obama’s column that many expect that he’ll be able to be called as the winner of the state’s electoral votes nonetheless. Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) announced last Saturday that voters affected by the storm could use an email ballot process set up for overseas voters. However, many voters reported this week that email boxes designated to receive the ballots were already full and not able to accept any more ballots. In addition, some voters said they’d gotten no response to their emailed requests for ballots.

New Jersey: Storm Victims Struggled to Have Their Votes Counted | ABC News

Displaced victims of the storm-ravaged New Jersey coastline faced a new challenge on Tuesday, as their attempts to vote in person, by email, and by fax failed. New Jersey, at the last minute and prompted by the displacement of residents from superstorm Sandy, was the first state to ever allow electronic voting for a significant portion of its population. Other states have allowed some electronic voting for military members or overseas residents in the past. The effort in New Jersey on Tuesday, however, showed the difficulties of maintaining an orderly and efficient election when phone lines and inboxes are overwhelmed with voter requests.

New Jersey: Election Official Uses Hotmail to Collect Voter Ballots | Bloomberg

As if voting by e-mail weren’t insecure enough, an election official in New Jersey has now instructed citizens who can’t get their ballots through to swamped government e-mail servers to send them instead to his personal Hotmail account, according to BuzzFeed. You read that right: Hotmail. For voting. The vote-by-e-mail idea came about as a result of the destruction leveled on New Jersey by Hurricane Sandy, and the concept by itself has some merit as a what-else-are-you-going-to-do emergency measure in a disaster zone.

New Jersey: ‘Massive Confusion’ in Pennsylvania, New Jersey a ‘Hot Bed’ of Problems | Roll Call

A representative from the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition told Roll Call this afternoon that there were reports of “massive confusion” in Pennsylvania, voting-machine problems in Ohio, long lines in southern Virginia, technical problems in Texas and difficulties in New Jersey. Tanya House, one of the attorneys working with the group, said there are reports that voters in Pennsylvania are showing up at the polls and being told they need photo identification, even though a recent court ruling delayed implementation of the commonwealth’s new voter ID law until after Election Day. Voters there were also receiving mailings as late as Friday that referenced the need for a photo ID. “Massive confusion in Pennsylvania,” House said. “The state did not do a good job about informing people that they do not have to show photo ID in order to vote. Poll workers are telling them they do and people are being turned away.”

New Jersey: E-voting chaos: New Jersey voters sent to official’s personal Hotmail address | Ars Technica

Security experts warned that New Jersey’s plan for e-mail-based voting was a recipe for problems, and anecdotal evidence is starting to trickle in that the system isn’t working as well as organizers had hoped. One address used to request ballots was not even accepting e-mail late Tuesday morning. And in another county, an election official responded to problems with the county e-mail system by inviting voters to send ballot requests to his personal Hotmail address. The unfolding fiasco was first spotted by Buzzfeed, which notes that a number of voters have tweeted about having their e-mails to county voting officials bounce. “Oh no! email box for Essex County Clerk’s box is full. No one can email in their ballots,” tweeted one New Jersey voter last night. Essex County, NJ, is in the suburbs of New York and has nearly 800,000 residents. As one of the largest counties in the state, it is evidently struggling to keep up with the demand for e-mail ballots.

Louisiana: Secretary of State expresses concern with New Jersey online voting | NOLA.com

Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler expressed concern Monday morning over New Jersey's weekend announcement it would be allowing those displaced by Hurricane Sandy to vote online.  "Quite frankly, I don't think we're there yet," Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler told press assembled in Baton Rouge this morning. Referring to New Jersey's recent announcement the state will allow displaced citizens to vote by email or fax as "overseas voters," Schedler added "I'm very concerned about the methodology."

New Jersey: Email vote rule raises storm of protest | phys.org

Citizens of New Jersey's Ocean County vote at the Ocean County Administration building in Toms River in a special early mail voting arrangement. New Jersey's decision to allow voters displaced by superstorm Sandy to cast ballots by email has prompted a flood of warnings over security, secrecy and a potential for legal entanglements. New Jersey's decision to allow voters displaced by superstorm Sandy to cast ballots by email has prompted a flood of warnings over security, secrecy and a potential for legal entanglements. State officials in New Jersey announced the plan Saturday, saying it could help victims of the unprecedented storm along with rescuers who may also be unable to get to polling places.