NJ Halts 'Internet Voting' Experiment After Court Challenge

NEWARK, NJ — New Jersey has put the brakes on its plans to test out an internet-based voting system in the July primary election after a court challenge by a Rutgers Law School professor and students.

The Garden State had reportedly been probing the new technology amid the coronavirus crisis, which caused dozens of municipalities to hold “mail only” nonpartisan elections last week, including Newark.

State officials were considering making the technology available for voters with disabilities and overseas voters, an unnamed source told NPR.

New Jersey experimented with an app-based ballot system in 33 local elections on May 12, aiming its efforts at people with disabilities that make it impractical for them to vote by mail, The Washington Post reported.

The cloud-based system is developed by a Seattle-based company, Democracy Live, The Fulcrum reported.

However, according to Venetis, “there is no easier and stealthy way to manipulate votes than by hacking into an internet-based voting system.”

According to a statement from Rutgers Law School, the state abandoned the internet-based system that Venetis challenged during a court conference earlier this week, held by phone before state Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson in Mercer County.

Venetis and students in the International Human Rights Clinic, which she directs, worked from home during the pandemic, filing an emergency motion on May 11 which they wrote using their phones and personal computers. The injunction sought to enforce a court order that Venetis secured in 2010, which banned any and all forms of internet-based voting in New Jersey.

During Monday’s call, Venetis urged Jacobson not to dismiss the motion, since the state didn’t say if it would seek to go back to internet-based voting for the general election in November.

Venetis said Delaware and West Virginia are planning to pilot similar systems during their presidential primaries next month. The clinic, working with other advocates, is planning challenges to those efforts, she said.

Venetis said the adoption of online voting conflicts with Executive Order No. 105, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy a few weeks ago, which mandated that all voting in New Jersey be done via mail.

• See related article: Coming Election 'Primarily' Will Be Vote-By-Mail, Gov. Murphy Says

“Voting electronically is not voting by mail,” Venetis said. “It is the exact opposite of what the order mandates. Additionally, voting by mail is verifiable, as it produces hand marked paper ballots that can be counted, and recounted, if the need arises."

According to Venetis, voting by mail, if done properly, ensures that voters with underlying medical conditions don’t have to choose between their safety and exercising their most fundamental right.

“Hacking ballots transmitted through the internet is the easiest way to change election results and suppress the vote,” she said. “And one can do it without a trace."

Rutgers Law School students Yaritza Urena-Mendez, Andy Balbuena, Sawyer Like and Nicholas Malaniak assisted in researching and drafting the brief. Two members of the Rutgers Law Associates, Patrick Severe and Michael Branton, filed the papers with the court under the supervision of professor Andy Rothman.

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