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Julio Cortez / AP
Ed Lippman, 58, wears a message on his jacket on Election Day while walking home, Tuesday, Nov. 6, in Hoboken, N.J.
New Jersey's emergency experiment with email voting hasn't fared well. One election official described it as a "catastrophe" and voters are complaining that computer glitches are blocking their last-minute efforts to obtain electronic ballots. An avalanche of requests for email ballots that overwhelmed county clerks' offices forced the state to extend its email voting deadline to Friday afternoon at 8 p.m., though email ballot requests had to filed by 5 p.m. ET Tuesday.
"It has become apparent that County Clerks are receiving applications at a rate that outpaces their capacity to process them without an extension," said Lt. Gov. Kim Guadango in her order extending the deadline.
Several election officials say misunderstanding is at the root of the problem: Email ballots are only permitted for residents displaced by Superstorm Sandy, but many who are not displaced are nevertheless deluging the system.
"The numbers are overwhelming. The county clerks are inundated with requests," said Michael Harper, clerk of the Board of Elections for Hudson County, N.J. which includes Hoboken, one of the hardest-hit regions recovering from Sandy. Asked to describe the situation, he said, "I would lean more towards catastrophe."
New Jersey has taken the extraordinary step of allowing votes to be cast all the way up until Friday. This applies to voters in counties affected by Hurricane Sandy, and could make the state vulnerable to lawsuits. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
New Jersey's email voting law allows overseas residents and active duty military to request ballots electronically; it was extended by state executive order on Saturday to apply to residents displaced by the storm.
NBC News Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams said the extreme step of extending the voting deadline could expose New Jersey to lawsuits.
"This raises some interesting legal questions," Williams wrote. "A federal law requires all states to choose their presidential electors the same day. But another law says if a state fails to do that, then its legislature determines how its presidential elections are determined. Some legal experts say they believe while New Jersey may be in technical violations of federal laws if it does this, it's Congress that makes the ultimate decision about whether to accept a state's electoral votes. And they doubt that Congress would fail to count the votes of a state brought to its knees by the storm. "
Another hitch is this: Residents must email or fax their requests to their county clerk's office, which must respond individually to each request. The mountain of last-minute requests is crushing clerks' capacity to respond.
Janet Larwa, the deputy clerk at the Hudson County Clerk's office, told NBC News there were eight workers trying to process 3,000 email requests as of mid-day Tuesday.
Frustrations weren't limited to Hudson County. In Essex County, which includes the state's largest city, Newark, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit after it received 25 complaints from residents who said they'd requested email ballots, but hadn't received them. Voters reported that emails sent to the county clerk's office were bouncing, indicating the clerk's inbox was full or not functioning.
"You've got people who are trying to utilize this email or fax voting capabilities the state has said they are entitled to," Alexander Shalom, policy counsel for the ACLU, told NJ.com. "The counties are so overwhelmed with these requests, they are not able to reply. People have emailed in requests to get ballots and they are not hearing back."
The ACLU sought a court order that would have allowed displaced residents to fill out a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, typically used by overseas voters who apply for but don't receive their blank absentee ballots in time, but an Essex County judge rejected the petition on Tuesday night.
Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin tried to ease the problem by giving out his personal email Hotmail address to voters, inviting them to send ballot requests there, according to a message posted on the official Facebook page for West Orange, N.J., a city in Essex County.
In Morris County, BuzzFeed.com reported that emails sent to that county's clerk were bouncing. The Daily Record reported the clerk there was struggling under a mountain of 1,000 requests.
Harper, from Hudson County, said the problems stem from the wider email voting process being "thrown upon us at the last minute," not to mention the unprecedented volume. Larwa said that voters who aren't displaced from their homes are being turned down. Her office is calling some voters and denying their email ballot requests, telling them to go to their usual polling place. With power restored to much of Hudson County within the past 48 hours, very few polling locations have been relocated, she said.
The problems might not stop with delivering email ballots, however. Experts are also worried that even if all New Jersey voters who need them receive email ballots in time, there will be confusion about submitting the ballots. The state's email voting procedure is a three-step process which is new to nearly all voters, and ripe for confusion, according to J. Alex Halderman, an electronic voting expert at the University of Michigan. Voters must request a ballot electronically; email or fax the completed ballot to the clerk; then mail the original hard copy to the clerk.
"I'm not sure that voters will understand they still have to mail the ballot," Halderman said. "They may not be aware for requirement, even though it's on the form. If people don't do that, it will be fodder for lawsuits."
Halderman is also concerned that computer hackers can intercept email ballots and alter votes, or otherwise electronically tamper with the process.
"Email voting is tremendously risky ... you never want to make last minute change to an election process. That's a recipe for chaos," he said. "It's a reflection of desperation and seriousness of the situation New Jersey (post-Sandy) that officials are using email voting."
Voting officials in New York apparently agree with Halderman. New York State Board of Elections co-chair Doug Kellner said during the weekend that his state rejected emergency email ballots because, "they're hackable and they're not verifiable," according to USA Today.
Still, Halderman is worried that voters who get a taste of email voting may clamor for it in future elections.
"We are definitely concerned that voters will want to have access to this again if they it convenient," he said. "But transmitting votes by email doesn't have good secrecy or integrity protection. It's easy to spoof an email, intercept an email, find it in someone's outbox and alter it ... It's possible to hack email servers and change votes after they are received. It's the highest level of risk for any kind of electronic voting."
With reporting by NBC News Talesha Reynolds.
Follow Bob Sullivan on Twitter; He writes for NBC News at the Red Tape Chronicles.
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First sign of trouble was when they began receiving requests by the deposed king of Uganda asking them to launder money which he would split with them.
Might want to make a couple of Martinis and chill... It will probably be months before we know who won the election. It will be extremely close, and there are glitches/ challenges all over the country.
Too many lazy people. They don't want to be bothered by having to go to a polling place.
Here we go folks....standby for "frustrations" within the court system which will be flooded with lawsuits.
I can see it now: Ohio....Pennsylvania....Florida.....Michigan.....Virginia....etc....you take your pick.
Next will be the NAACP, New Black Panthers, CPUSA, Mexico, Venezuela, or Cuba.
Rontron, you are aware that most of the polling places on the shore have been destroyed, right?
Just vote by mail. Oregon and Washington do already.
It works.
This is truly a problem for those dislocated and disrupted by Sandy. We need a better system. I don't think email voting is the answer, but at least there is an attempt being made to include those who have lost so much and now their voice in the election is being lost. What a mess!
Halderman, have you never heard of public key encryption.
Voting can be made safe as long as people are given a one-time key to use in voting.
.
They should have Liasions that they can dispatch to these stricken areas. Like a mobile blood unit bus, except for voting. They could have a satellite and internet feed to cast their vote,or the option for a paper ballot, after they are checked by the poll workers, maybe a team of 4 or 5 for each different area.
Of course hindsight is 20/20, but they could of set up "mobile voting units" for stricken areas ahead of this storm. Set up at a Grocery store in the area, or a mall.
We can vote multiple times from several email accounts, LMAO! Of course the system was going to crash. LOL! Just have to vote from a different web address.
There are always loop holes around every computer system. Any novice hanker will tell you that.
It will be 2 weeks before we know the real winner now.
I rode my bicycle to my polling place and cast my vote for the libertarians.
Let's have a newsvine poll! How did you vote?
No, you can't. Each ballot is examined individually and checked against voting records. Part of the e-mail ballot process requires the voter to waive confidentiality so that the election board can view the ballot.
DawgPound,Your comments are factual.We knew that email voting would be rift with fraud.Christy is clueless when it comes to technology.
Who won? Wrongney?
Since you are allowed to vote twice if you are republican, this was a landslide election.
PROOF this is one thing that shouldn't be done online..GLITCHES OR NOT!
Can you picture... 150 million people voting online..and this simple few hundreds in NJ still had problems!
I got a piece of paper....can i write down my vote??? several hundred times even maybe??
Yep, as long as you don't include "hanging chad" from your paper or use transparent ink.
As long as you are a democrat, it's in your blood
First of all, the most annoying thing I've heard/read about this is people who think people are voting from different computers/email addresses. Duh. The reason why this is taking so long is because there is a verification process and it's not like the ballot in on some website. It is the same process as absentee voting for military/overseas person which allows you to vote via email/fax. You fill out the application, you fax/email it they then verify your registration and email/fax you a personalized ballot which you must print and fax back or print and scan and email back.
Second, this process was very frustrating and even more so that the county clerks offices were trying to do more than there job by deciding on their own who was displaced and who wasn't. They should have formulated an entirely separate application for the displaced voters (instead of voters modifying the existing absentee form to explain that they're a displaced voter) and they should have had an email address solely for these forms. Email addresses were hard to come by, and a response apparently even harder.
I sent my application in via email through Essex county Sunday expecting a response by mid Monday. I never received a response. I then called and the clerk told me to fax it, I faxed it (twice) and then still with no response I tried to correspond via email, but my emails kept coming up returned as they're mailbox was full. This was MONDAY the day before the election. I tried again Tuesday, same thing. How were they to receive email votes with a full mail box??
Now, I sent my application in Sunday. I assume, after reading this article and before, that mine was turned down due to address perhaps as not being really "displaced by the storm." Which is true, I was not displaced by the storm. But, I work in NY and was staying in Queens so that I could actually get to work in under 2 hours and the trains/transit to my polling center were not operating due to the storm. In anticipation that they would not be up and running by Tuesday (and I was right), I applied to vote via email/fax well in advance. I didn't receive a response and I didn't get to vote. So displaced voter, more like, disenfranchised.
It isn't fodder for lawsuits. Read the form. LOL
Vote early! Vote often! Vote the graves!
Ah, if only the entire country could vote electronically! Wouldn't that make a major mess out of the system?
Soon to be heard, "there's an app for that."
That was the quote for the Daley machine in Chicago.... try something new.... that's so "1960's"....
But still so true
THis is why unless there is a major landslide for either side, tehre is no way this election is going to be decided tonight. Between this issue with New Jersey and the problems in New York, both sides have a pretty solid reason to put in protests. We'll be lucky if this election is decided in the next few weeks..not hours.
Seriously? Is there any doubt in anyones mind which way NY (26 point lead) and NJ (12 point lead) are going to vote? These aren't exactly battleground states.
Doesn't matter what the polling results show; today is the election...if there is a question as to whether or not people got to vote there is room for protest.
If we based an election on the polling numbers in each state up to the election, there would be no reason for everyone to vote if they weren't in a battleground (or very tight) state.
Polls are not done with 100% of the possible voters...it is a sampling.
Anyone up for a newsvine poll?
I voted libertarian!
IWonder: So did I, for all the good it will do us.
It's pretty obvious there is an enormous demand for email voting. States should concentrate on finding a way to make that happen. If the IRS can accept tax returns over the internet, seems we should be able to vote that way, too.
Agreed. This is 2012. Don't tell me my government cant accept my vote via email. Voting should be as conveniant as possible so as to capture as many votes as possible.
Voters should be as honest as possible so as to capture as many legitimate votes as possible. Since this will never happen, email voting will only lead to further fraud by hackers, multiple votes per voter, etc.
E-mail is the most insecure form of communication on the web and you really do not want to allow voting by e-mail. Regarding taxes, the IRS issues a personal pin number to track your filing and it has much higher security. I was part of a test program for the IRS back in the mid-80's (as an IT professional), so it has taken them 20 plus years to get it right. I waited almost 15 years before I felt comfortable electronically filing my personal taxes.
And the lawyers are standing in the wings.
Well we know how that is working with the IRS! No fraud there.
here in Manhattan people are simply too lazy to go to their own district to vote and are crying displaced. Really goes against what is happening in NJ, Staten Island and the Rockaways.
Show of hands from anybody who didn't see that coming.
Anyone?
What idiot thought e-mail voting was a good idea?
Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the law that only congress can change the national election date(s)? I know they may be able to extend for local elections.
Whatever happened to everyone voting on the same day? I understand the need for absentee ballots in specific instances, but the issue of anyone voting any time it's convenient is ridiculous. Many people voted even before the first presidential debate (not that the debates are all that informative or important). Much information came out or was expanded on in the past few weeks that could have influenced a lot of voters who sent their ballots in early just to get it over with.
Let's go back to voting being on one day. Come to think of it, it might be a good idea to make campaigning one day, too.
Just Me-I am in agreement with you.
Voting by email- what a terrible idea, obviously
Can I vote in Spanish from Mexico?
The morons in charge had at least 2 weeks warning that this was going to be a big storm. Did they make any alternative plans for Election Day? No they did not. What a bunch of Morons.
Hindight is 20/20. I didn't anticipate this fubar, did you? Most of us were looking at the storm on the radar not the cleanup after the crap hit the hurricane.
Jonathan Reid,now that would have taken some forethought and hard work.Our government has an aversion to hard work.
And forethought.
This e-mail voting is a catastrophe. It would be better to have voting boothes at evacuation centers to collect votes as well as follow the system used in New York with displaced voters being allowed to vote at any polling site.
I insist that every person who registers to vote be digitally photographed and the photo be kept as a "Voters' Facebook" and when they vote again (or appy for absentee ballots) they be photoed again with the data updated. It can be verified against driver's license photos, school photos, passport photos or any other government ID registration as well as past voting photos. These changes in the voting system would limit voter fraud as well as election fraud and make voting easier for everyone. This is the 21st century!
Funny how they are SO concerned with the storm victim's votes being counted, but completely ignore the fact that once again many of our military personnel's votes will not be counted due to late ballots, lost trucks, etc. They don't get to email it in. Also what about all the power company employees from out of state that were sent to the Jersey shore, and surrounding areas that basically had their right to vote today taken from them by the necessity to work.
Are you kidding, This is a great idea! The popularity of people signing up to vote by email says it all. It sounds like the problem was the county clerk offices to me, not the software. We do our taxes on line safely,,, Maybe we should bring back the pony express??
Do you have any idea how easy e-mail is to spoof?
GTM234,I file my taxes online but I'm not really sure that it is that secure.Hackers can hack any system if they want to.
i never understood why people vote. people in power only care about gaining more or maintaining the power they have. they have no interest in helping the common man. all those who vote are fools. let me not even get started on lobbyists and so on. why do you idi0ts vote??
Not sure if I can take someone called DirtyPantiesLover seriously?
In my husband's voting booth, the pen had been cut off from an attached string, and a loose pencil was the only writing tool there. The instructions on the ballot sleeve state that the ballots are to be filled out in PEN only. My husband filled out the ballot with his own pen, then went to report the booth with the pencil. Poll workers actually had to hunt for another pen, one found a pen in her purse. I hope that was the only booth like that, there are actually two precincts in the same room, so there were a lot of booths. I didn't see any poll observers from any party, obviously somebody should have been there.
We had no poll observers at the local Baptist church of which I am not a member.There were plenty of pens and helpful people.One poll worker was only 17 and it made my heart feel good to see somebody her age already getting involved even though she can't vote for the president of the U.S. for four more years.I love voting there.I spent 5 minutes from start to finish.
E-mail voting sounds like a HUGE access point for voting "irregularities." How do they prove that the proper person is on the other end of the line?!? Allowing the possibility of voter fraud seems like One Foolish Idea!
I prefer Vote-by-Mail here in OREGON.
Register by MANY options. ALL Post Offices have registration forms to pick up. About a month before the election the County sends out your Voters Guide. About two weeks later the ballot arrives. Vote at your leisure, NO PROBLEMS! No lines or malfunctioning machines, no watchers and no exit polls. Drop it in the mail or save a stamp and drop in a Ballot Collection Box located all around your specific county. Closest is often at your local Library.
To NOT have vote-by-mail is One Foolish Idea!
Absentee ballots (vote by mail) have not worked well in my state. Many of them have gone missing (FBI is investigating at least two cities where ballots were never received by voters) and the return envelopes are set up so as to confuse the post office completely. There are "return addresses" on BOTH sides of the large envelope, and about 40% of the time, the envelope is returned to the voter, not to the clerk's office. My township has complained to the post office, but the real problem is the design of the envelope.
I forgot to add as long as your signature on your ballot envelope matches your Registration form, NO chance at voter mis-identification. Vote-by-mail is SIMPLE and EASY.
To allow for the CHANCE of voter intimidation is One Foolish Idea!
Yes,Your signature is on the outside of an envelope going through the U.S. mail.That in itself can set you up for identity theft.It's best to fill out your absentee ballot and drop it off at what would be your polling place.
just a cleaning lady,
Not sure how absentee ballots are done in you state, but where I come from the signed envelope is placed inside another envelope so that your signature is no visible.
And you should stick to cleaning, as you have no idea how secure email voting can be. Leave that to the professionals, please.
The engineering community, all around the world, has made it well known that any computer based voting is subject to massive hacking. Email based voting is considered ridiculous by the engineering community. When you elect Democrats, you elect science and engineering illiterate people who will make the situation worse. Obama loves his Blackberry and so does China who have people watching every text and listening to every conversation. Thank God that Obama only calls The View for advice.
It is so easy to vote from different computers. Don't let people tell you any different.