New Jersey: Post-Sandy voting by e-mail will be secure

Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY | USATODAY

New Jersey officials clarified Monday that displaced residents who vote by e-mail must send in paper copies of their ballots as well, addressing a key ballot security concern raised in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno announced Saturday that New Jersey residents affected by the storm could vote by e-mail under the state's overseas voter law – but didn't say they must send in paper backup.

Like 30 other states, New Jersey allows overseas voters and military voters to return their ballots electronically via e-mail. But only New Jersey also requires voters to mail in a paper version.

"This was a requirement all along,'' says Ernie Landante, Guadagno's spokesman.

Online voters will receive instructions to mail in a paper copy when they receive ballots via e-mail, he says. To vote electronically, residents will have to print their ballot, mark it, then fax it or scan and e-mail it to their county clerk. They then must mail in the hard copy of the ballot.

"We weren't changing the instructions. The process was going to be the same all along," Landante said.

Guadagno's failure to mention the hard-copy backup in the directive allowing displaced voters to use electronic voting set off a wave of criticism among voting security advocates who oppose online voting.

"Internet voting is inherently insecure … and e-mail voting is the most insecure form of Internet voting. It's quite easy to fake an e-mail return address," says Andrew Appel, a Princeton University computer science professor. "E-mail voting is completely untrustworthy and insecure unless it's backed up by a paper ballot signed by the voter."

After the storm, New Jersey extended the deadline to request an absentee ballot until last Friday. It will also allow residents to cast provisional ballots at any polling place if they can't get to their usual polling place or if it is not functioning.

But voters will only be able to vote for statewide races via provisional ballot.

In New York, where polling places have also been moved because of the storm, State Board of Elections Co-chair Doug Kellner said e-mail voting was rejected because of its vulnerability to fraud.

"They're hackable and they're not verifiable," he said.