DisastersNew Jersey voting measures in the wake of Hurricane Sandy violated law: Report
A new study found that key emergency measures that were meant to allow voters to participate digitally in the days after 2012 Hurricane Sandy may have violated state law. Some of those steps, such as allowing people to request their mail-in ballots by fax and e-mail, led to confusion in many county precincts on Election Day.
A critical report released by the Rutgers School of Law in Newark has found that key emergency measures that were meant to allow voters to participate digitally in the days after 2012 Hurricane Sandy may have violated state law.
As NJ.com reports, some of those steps, such as allowing people to request their mail-in ballots by fax and e-mail, led to confusion in many county precincts on Election Day.
“Internet voting should never be permitted, especially in emergencies when governmental infrastructure is already compromised,” said Penny Venetis, the co-director of the Constitutional Rights Clinic, the academic wing of Rutgers which released the report.
According to Venetis, the internet and fax voting methods put sensitive data at greater risk of hacking since there was not time to have a proper secure infrastructure in place following the natural disaster.
Intent on allowing the voting procedures to occur on time in the days following Sandy, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno issued that step — along with an extension of ballot processing deadlines, extended hours at polling sites, and notices to the public about the changes — in order to commit to the original schedule. But it is the online changes, where she may have broken the law.
“You can’t vote by internet. You can’t ask people to send their Social Security numbers through the email without secure servers,” said Venetis, “You can’t implement something as an emergency measure that is clearly illegal.”
The report found no direct connection between the directives and Governor Chris Christie’s authorization, instead specifically finding Guadagno guilty of altering election law.
Guadagno’s office, however, has issued a statement arguing that such measures have occurred in the past.
“In years prior to 2012, certain New Jersey voters had been allowed to request and return a ballot by electronic transmission,” said office spokeswoman Kathryn Grosso, “For example, members of the military or overseas voters were allowed to vote by email and fax. Thus, the steps taken to enfranchise displaced Sandy victims in the immediate aftermath of the storm were not without lawful precedent.”
While Venetis does concede that New York also practiced emergency voting procedures it “explicitly rejected fax and email ballots.”
The Election Day confusion led to many jammed fax machines, printers that ran out of toner and clogged email inboxes that at a certain point had begun to reject new messages. The report has also alleged that there was no checking system to see if people voted more than once, or if they had voted in person and digitally.
Despite this, the American Civil Liberties Union gave the New Jersey administration a high marks on their First Term Report Card for handling the situation swiftly in the face of a natural disaster.
Venetis has sent the report to the New Jersey legislature.
