Will your vote count? (NJ)

[struggle4progress]

Saturday, November 1, 2008
BY ELISE YOUNG
TRENTON BUREAU

... "New Jersey is one <state> that we're very concerned about," said Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a non-profit advocacy group that is pushing for paper balloting. "Voters deserve a way that you can do a legitimate recount" ...

Critics of the electronic machines said that any programming problems may not surface until days or weeks after the election.

"If you see voting machines misbehaving — the button doesn't work, you press here and it lights up there, it's not a hack," Appel said. "A hack tries not to draw attention to itself. I predict on Election Day in New Jersey, the machines will appear to operate just fine — if someone has not been nefarious."

This year in New Jersey, at least 250,000 voters have chosen to use absentee ballots. Among them was Stephanie Harris, a Mercer County farmer who in the 2004 primary cast a vote on a touch screen that malfunctioned, leaving her unsure whether she had voted up to four times — or not at all. She sued the state to provide paper receipts ...

http://www.northjersey.com/news/njpolitics/33681029.html