| Trenton,
NJ -- Attorney General Stuart Rabner today
filed a court application for a recheck
of voting machine results in Ocean County
today because of a discrepancy in reported
results in two election districts in Barnegat
and Lakewood.
Rabner,
the state’s chief election officer,
acted at the request of the Ocean County
Board of Election, after it was discovered
that a remote tally of election results
from Barnegat did not match printed cartridge
tapes for two individual machines. The Attorney
General agreed with the board’s decision
to recheck all the voting machines in the
county.
“Our
commitment is to protect the integrity of
our electoral process from start to finish,
and that means making sure that election
results are tabulated correctly,’’
Rabner said. “It appears that Ocean
County election officials have discovered
just one discrepancy between a machine vote
tally and what was transmitted electronically
to a central tally device. But the best
way to check whether this is an isolated
glitch – is to do a thorough check
of all machines.’’
“It
is important to make certain that the official
results are completely accurate, and a re-check
of each and every voting machine tape in
the district will allow us to be certain,’’
Rabner added.
The
Attorney General’s office will seek
permission in Superior Court for the recheck
because by law all voting machines are impounded
for 15 days after an election. Court permission
is needed to open the machines for the recheck.
The recheck will involve just the machines,
not provisional or absentee or emergency
ballots. It is not the same as a recount.
The
matter is scheduled to be heard Monday in
Toms River by Superior Court Judge Joseph
Foster.
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