On Nov. 3, hundreds of thousands of New Jersey voters will slip behind the voting-booth curtains and secretly decide which man they want to be governor for the next four years. They’ll tap the screen on the electronic voting machine and wait for the lighted "X." They’ll cast their vote and go on their way, content that they have exercised their most basic democratic right.

But when the polls close and the votes are counted, can we trust the result? Sadly, we can’t be sure. Because New Jersey still doesn’t require its electronic voting machines to produce a paper record to verify their results.

Paper-ballot proponents are trying to get the law changed. They charge that elections without paper-verified ballots are unconstitutional and illegal, but their lawsuit — Gusciora vs. McGreevey — has dragged on in state court for five years.

A ruling is expected soon, but not soon enough for this year’s contests. Meanwhile, a plan to retrofit 10,000 electronic voting machines with paper printers was delayed by the Legislature this year for lack of funds. So for yet another major election, New Jersey will use the same unacceptable election policy: We’ll cross our fingers and hope nothing goes terribly wrong.

Here’s why paperless electronic voting is a crap shoot: Voters hit a button and send a signal that the specially programmed computer must interpret. The computer then decides, for instance, is this a vote for Jon Corzine or Chris Christie or Chris Daggett?

The vote is recorded, and when the polls close, the machine spits out the results. But there is no way to be certain that a computer glitch or malicious hacking hasn’t corrupted the outcome. We must take the computer’s word — even though most of us don’t have a clue how a computer works.

Think about it: How many times have computer glitches messed up another part of your life? How many times has your laptop or personal computer been infected with a virus? Computers are not infallible, they break down. And even computers with the most sophisticated firewalls can be breached.

Andrew Appell — a Princeton professor, computer scientist and expert witness in the electronic voting lawsuit — says it’s time New Jersey changed to optical-scan voting, which he believes is the best available technology. Optical-scanning isn’t perfect, but it’s more reliable than paperless voting.

"It’s simple, voters understand it and it’s extremely accurate," Appell said. "And it’s relatively cheap. It’s off-the-shelf technology."

With optical-scan balloting, voters fill out paper ballots that are read by a computer, just like SAT exams. The votes are tabulated, and the ballot serves as a backup, which can be counted by hand if a recount or audit is necessary.

While New Jersey voters wait on the courts, Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.) has proposed a bill that would require paper ballots for all federal elections, starting in November 2010. The bill authorizes $1 billion for replacing paperless voting machines and provides funding for randomly auditing optical-scan results. Congress should pass the bill.

Voting is the foundation of democracy, and we should be able to trust — and verify — our election results.