Will Paper Trails Be Ready For New Jersey's Most Important Election?

Having blown a statutorily-imposed January 1, 2009 deadline, New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells has ordered the implementation of paper trail printers to most of New Jersey's direct electronic voting (DRE) machines for which the technology is available. At the close of 2008, efforts to delay implementation of paper trail technology failed and a debate has erupted regarding whether New Jersey should scrap the DRE machines all together and replace them with optical scan voting technology used by many other states. According to the Star-Ledger:

A spokeswoman for Sequoia said the company hopes to get approval to start work on the new component in February, and have enhanced machines ready for the November gubernatorial election. Three trial runs of the enhanced voting machines will be held this month in special school elections in Rumson, Pompton Lakes and Bound Brook, state officials said.

The modified machines will have a small window that will allow voters to peak at the paper printout to verify their vote before hitting the "cast vote" button. That paper then will be collected in an attached bag, with contents available for recounts, officials said.

Wells, in certifying what is formally known as the "Voter-Verified Paper Record for the Direct Electronic Voting Machines," said New Jersey would be a "pioneer" in this effort.

Wells, in acknowledging that the new system will require plenty of education and scrutiny, quoted the report of the special committee: "The devices add an additional level of complexity to the voting process, as well as expense, and problems should be anticipated, at least for the first several rounds of voting, given the fact that poll workers are unfamiliar with these devices and that the technology has a limited operating history."