The Scrutineers add up all of the votes, and the Revisers check the ballots and the names on the Scrutineers' lists to ensure that no error was made.
Tibisay Lucena, the president of the electoral authority, rejected calls to check the paper ballots against the electronic result.
Voters even tramped into one polling station, No. 85, to dutifully check the single name on the ballot.
In New Jersey's case, voters who opt for electronic voting will have to waive their right to privacy, since election officials will have to check the name printed on the ballot against the voter and registration rolls (to avoid duplicates, among other possible sources of fraud and mistakes).
Or did they just look at the ballot and unthinkingly check the candidates they were familiar with, or who happened to be their pals?
Leaders from the three main opposition parties, who urged their supporters to check the "abstain" box on their ballots, predicted that many governing party candidates would not be able to take office because electoral law requires unopposed candidates to have the votes of at least 20percentt of eligible voters.
As for postal ballots, rules imposed in 2006 require an applicant to provide a sample signature and his date of birth, which are checked when the ballot is received.That is hardly a cast-iron protection: anyone registering fake applicants for postal votes could easily supply fake signatures too.
"We have three days to make sure they're registered, compare legislative districts they're eligible for, check the paper poll book to make sure they didn't vote in the division where they're registered, check the signature on the provisional ballot with the signature on the books," said Bob Lee, the election administrator in Philadelphia.
But the canvassing board responded that the signatures were checked when the ballots first arrived in the mail.
