NEWARK — The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey plans to file an emergency petition asking a state Superior Court judge to intervene because of problems with e-mail voting in counties across the state. Residents were also reporting problems via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

"You've got people who are trying to utilize this e-mail or fax voting capabilities the state has said they are entitled to," said Alexander Shalom, policy counsel for the ACLU. "The counties are so overwhelmed with these requests, they are not able to reply. People have e-mailed in requests to get ballots and they are not hearing back.

Shalom said he is seeking a court order allowing people to vote through the Federal Voting Assistance Program, which typically offers absentee ballots to residents living overseas or members of the armed services. The ACLU has received dozens of complaints through phone calls and social media from people having trouble.

“We don’t want potentially thousands of people to lose their right here,” Shalom said.

The ACLU is seeking the order now in state Superior Court in Essex County, which would apply only to the county. But Shalom said he wants Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno to allow it statewide. The process, however, would still be cumbersome: People would have to print the form, fill it out, scan it and email it.

They would also have to mail the original form to their county clerk’s office.

Shalom said one voter protection hotline, 1-866-MYVOTE-1, had received 1,500 complaints from people in New Jersey who tried to email or fax and received no reply or were told they couldn't be processed.

Over the weekend, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno issued a directive allowing voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy to request mail-in ballots and submit them via fax or e-mail by 8 p.m. today to county elections officials. But the large number of requests suggested people other than those affected by the storm were also taking advantage of the tool.

Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin said they’re getting “thousands” of emails and faxes from people who want to cast votes.

“Are there more emails and faxes than we are able to process by 8:00 tonight?” he said. “The answer is yes. “

Durkin said for each electronic request, his office has to verify the voter in the statewide registration system, make sure they live at their stated address and that they’re actually active registered voters. Then they need to pull up their signatures and verify that it matches the application’s signature, scan the ballot and email it to the person.

“That process takes approximately 15 minutes per voter,” he said. “This is for displaced voters from Hurricane Sandy. This is obviously on the honor’s system for people who are truly displaced. Obviously there are quite a few people taking advantage of this opportunity to vote.”

He added, “We are trying desperately to respond to the people who are truly displaced due to the hurricane disaster.” But Durkin said they can’t tell who is and isn’t displaced.

“So we’re doing the best we can as far as responding to the requests,” he said.

In Hudson County, Deputy Clerk Janet Lawra said her office was swamped by email requests for ballot, at an average of one every minute. They are concerned that people who are not displaced are seeking to vote by email, clogging up the system. Nevertheless, she said her office’s servers are still functioning.

“We are being inundated,” she said.

Thomas Moran of Hoboken said the basement of his apartment building flooded and destroyed the electrical and hot water system, so he’s living elsewhere. He applied to the Hudson County Clerk’s Office for an electronic ballot, but never received a response. When he called, they told him to get to a polling place because they were backlogged.

“If I do not receive my ballot sometime this afternoon I will fill out a provisional ballot tonight in Bergen County,” Moran said. “I'd much rather be able to vote in my local elections via email/fax, but I do not see how the Clerk's office could go through all those applications in such a short period of time.”

The problems reflected what some elections law experts feared would happen.

“It’s very, very problematic. It just shows electronic voting is a bad idea,” Rutgers Law professor Penny Venetis said. “In addition to it being very insecure, the system cannot accommodate electronically-submitted ballots. Paper ballots are the way to go. We know those can be processed.”

At a news conference in Westwood, Gov. Chris Christie said election day was running smoothly so far. He said less than 100 polling places had to be moved, although information compiled by The Star-Ledger from county elections officials Monday showed that more than 300 polling sites were relocated.

“Everyone should find the time to vote today, but the only people who should be applying for their ballots online are voters affected by the storm,” Christie said. “Everyone else, get your butt up and go to your polling place like normal."

He added, “There's no reason for anyone to worry about their vote not counting.”

But some residents displaced by the storm and encountering problems voting said, contrary to the governor’s reality, the election was anything but smooth.

“It’s a joke,” said Joseph Calvo of Jersey City, who’s living with his two, 10-month year old twins in Manhattan because his home had no power and no heat. "Honestly it's a joke. They talked about this process to vote and make it easy for people displaced, and it’s basically impossible.”

Calvo said he submitted an application for a mail-in ballot to the Hudson County Clerk’s Office but did not receive a ballot back. When he called the clerk’s office, he said, he was told they may not get around to his request and that he should get to a polling place.

“I spent five hours of my day trying to get hold of someone,” Calvo said. “Hudson County is telling me basically why don’t you try to make your way to the PATH, the bus, so you can normally vote.”

A spokesman for the state Division of Elections, Ernest Landante, said he was not familiar with the ACLU’s complaints but that Essex County had created a second e-mail account to accept ballots. Asked if state officials were taking any other steps to alleviate the problems, he said, “As I have more information I’ll provide that.”

“I think what’s very important to note is that we implemented this system because we wanted no one to be disenfranchised,” Landante said. He asked that only those displaced by the storm take advantage of electronic voting.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlsex), chairman of the state Democratic Party, reported problems in his storm-ravaged hometown of Sayreville. Several people requested absentee ballots but never received them in the mail. When they came to the polling place, they were marked as having voted, so they were given provisional ballots.

“The volume of provisional ballots this year, we’ve already surpassed what we’ve ever done in Sayreville,” Wisniewski said.

He said some polling places were without heat, and because workers were wearing gloves, it was taking them longer to flip through the voter books. In one instance, a polling place that bordered a devastated neighborhood was open, but a police barricade nearby confused some voters as to whether they were allowed to walk there.

Eventually, Wisniewski said, the police moved it.

Star-Ledger staff writers Alexi Friedman, Matt Friedman, Jessica Calefati and Jarrett Renshaw contributed to this report.

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