my experience as a NJ poll worker (Score 2, Interesting)

I was a poll worker in the 2006 election in Essex County, NJ. We were using the new Sequoia machines, for the first time in a general election, I believe. We experienced a discrepancy between the machine vote count and the count of paper tickets which are issued to the voters when they sign in to vote, and which are collected when the voter actually votes at the machine. We had 5 more votes than tickets, out of about 600 total votes in the precinct. The gap was present quite early in the day; a voting official who checked in at our precinct observed the gap at about 10 am. We had no clue how this came about, whether it was operator error on our part or whether the machines were just plain buggy or hacked. Apparently the problem was widespread, since a form letter was sent to poll workers that indicated discrepancies on a ward by ward basis. Never got resolved, as far as I know, nor did it get any meaningful coverage in the local or regional press. Without a full paper trail, I will never trust any electronic voting result.