I was listening to the Brian Leher show on WNYC in NY today, and he had on 3 voting experts: one from NY, one from NJ, and one from CN. One of the things they discussed was the ability to track your mail-in (or absentee) ballot. I had no idea you could do this in NJ, although I had heard that NY was starting it because of the fiasco in counting primary ballots earlier this summer.
Here’s how you register to track your New Jersey ballot. First you must register for a Public Access sign-in. To do this you will need either a NJ driver’s license #, or the last 4 digits of you SS#. This will work if you registered after 2002 because these things were required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). If, like me, you registered to vote before 2002, you will need to get your voter ID number before you can sign up for a Public Access ID.
To get that, you will have to call your county clerk’s office. It took me a couple of tries to get to the right person, and then only about 5 minutes to get my number. From there it was easy to register for the Public Access ID. When I had that, I had access to my entire voting history.
I was able to see, for instance, that the ballots I mailed in for the primary election were received, and accepted. Before that, I never knew.
So, I see this as a major step forward in secure mail-in voting. You can see if your vote is accepted, and then you can rest easy.
Each state has it’s own crazy rules, so your results may vary. At least NJ has stepped up. Check what your state is doing.
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