N.J. wants voting machines opened

New Jersey's attorney general yesterday asked a judge to open eight Camden County voting machines whose votes were not retrieved by poll workers after the election Tuesday.

Camden County election officials had said they would ignore any votes cast on the machines, which poll workers mishandled on election night, for now.

But after The Inquirer raised questions about that decision, Attorney General Anne Milgram's office yesterday petitioned Superior Court to open the machines and keep any votes from being disregarded.

"All votes should be counted," David Wald, spokesman for the attorney general, said.

Phyllis Pearl, Camden County superintendent of elections, said poll workers failed to properly retrieve computer cartridges that record the vote tallies from the eight computerized machines. None of the votes cast on those machines would be counted at this time, she said, because there weren't enough of those votes to affect the outcome of any race.

All voting machines by law are impounded for 15 days after an election. The computer cartridges the clerks should have removed on election night remain trapped inside the eight machines. They can be retrieved only by court order.

Pearl said she and Deputy Court Clerk Al Munjioli decided not to pursue counting the votes because those machines were in Camden, Cherry Hill, Gloucester City, Oaklyn and Pennsauken, where the election results weren't close. One of the machines was in Winslow, where the election was close, but officials said it wasn't used.

The attorney general disagreed with the Camden County decision. "We've got to find out," Wald said.

Wald said his office, which oversees elections, took the matter to Superior Court when Camden County's clerk did not.

Votes from several machines in Mercer and Middlesex Counties also weren't logged for the same reason. Election officials in those counties filed court petitions Wednesday and yesterday without the involvement of the attorney general.

Camden County Clerk Jim Beach did not return calls yesterday.

Munjioli said Camden County officials didn't think the missing cartridges were a big problem.

"If there was a close contest, we'd be in court in a heartbeat," he said. He blamed human error, noting that many poll workers are senior citizens who work 14 hours nonstop on Election Day.

The only close race in the county where a voting machine cartridge was missing was in Winslow. Pearl said that machine malfunctioned before the polls opened, so no one voted on it.

Munjioli said he suspected the other cartridges in question also weren't used by voters.

"More than likely the cartridges were missing from machines that weren't used," he said. He said he had been considering petitioning the court "just so there won't be any more questions."

In Middlesex County, where only one machine had to be opened yesterday, 111 votes were counted and did not affect the results. In that case, the machine had not malfunctioned.

In Mercer County, six of the seven cartridges retrieved from machines by court order were blank, according to Deputy Clerk Walker Worthy. The seventh one, from a machine that broke down halfway through the day, had recorded about 60 votes, he said.

Worthy said the Mercer County clerk and election supervisor petitioned the court yesterday.

"They want to make sure every vote counted and that no one was disenfranchised," he said.