Seth Wenig/AP Photo
In New Jersey’s Bergen County, election officials received more than 100,000 absentee ballots.
With the coronavirus spreading and an election on the horizon, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy took the proactive step to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters for the July 7 primary. Murphy’s May 15 executive order catapulted the state to a 100 percent vote-by-mail election—with reduced in-person alternatives—compared to less than 5 percent vote-by-mail turnout in 2016.
Currently, only five other states run full vote by mail elections, where every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail. But the coronavirus, the need for physical distancing, and stay-at-home orders has forced states to at least consider expanded vote-by-mail options. Only New Jersey and Maryland, however, delivered absentee ballots to all eligible voters. How did the state fare with ramping up this system?
In New Jersey’s largest county, Bergen County, election officials received more than 100,000 absentee ballots in the mail and in ballot drop boxes before Election Day. Commissioner Richard Miller says he expects about 140,000 absentee ballots to arrive in all, which kept his staff of 60 working through the weekend ahead of Tuesday. “Usually there are 20 mail-in ballots for a primary,” Miller says. He’s exaggerating, but tallying this year’s mountain of votes is greatly different than counting the 4,000 absentee ballots returned in 2016’s primary (less then 3 percent of the overall turnout).
Bergen County is also the most affected county in the Garden State by the coronavirus. It confirmed New Jersey’s first case of COVID-19 on March 4, when a 32-year-old man from Fort Lee tested positive. Today, it still has the highest concentration of cases in the state, with more than 19,000—just ahead of Hudson and Essex counties, all of which are in close proximity to New York City.
Each step is simple enough, but involves a team of hired poll workers, which have been in short supply since the pandemic began.
“We’re doing everything we can to have a free and fair election,” Miller says. And in New Jersey’s decentralized election system, the responsibility to effectively collect and count these mail-in ballots falls on the county level.
After expanding personnel, the county expects to have the vast majority of the votes counted within two days, with all three of its tabulating machines running at full capacity. Each machine can count about 30,000 ballots per day.
Executing this expanded vote by mail election also highlights how much planning goes into running elections by mail. Although most voters will have already done their part before Election Day, for election officials and seasonal election staff, the results will have been weeks in the making.
Election workers have spent weeks sorting ballots as they arrive in the mail and collecting them from absentee ballot drop boxes every night across each county. Those ballots were then checked for matching voter signatures, where election workers compare signatures on the returned envelopes to signatures on a voter’s registration file. Then these ballots are opened and flattened out and wait to be counted, which legally cannot begin before the polls open on Election Day.
Each step is simple enough, but involves a team of hired poll workers, which have been in short supply since the pandemic began. It also involves coordinating logistics on every step, from where ballot drop boxes will be placed, to how staff will get access to signatures on file for matching, to where ballots will be stored in the time between when they arrive and when they are counted. This all happens in addition to maintaining public health guidelines to keep staff adequately distanced in their workspaces, with masks and hand sanitizer.
However, with such a drastic change in election operations, voting confusion can still occur. While local officials responded to the governor’s executive order, the state’s Division of Elections website was not as successful.
Despite the absentee ballot mailing, a limited number of polling stations were opened. But as of early Tuesday, the DOE’s website wasn’t updated with the new list of sites, and did not tell voters who would be affected by those consolidations where their new polling place would be. Although this wouldn’t affect those who already voted by mail, it would affect those planning to return their mail-in ballots at their polling site, as well as voters with disabilities who cannot vote privately or independently through the absentee ballot system.
There have also been numerous reports about bugs and technical glitches in the state’s voter registration system. There were reports of the servers crashing and being inaccessible during business hours and problems integrating information from the Motor Vehicle Commission, where people can register to vote, with the voter database. One election official told the New Jersey Globe that it was becoming an obstacle to preparing for today’s election. However, this problem with technology has existed even before the pandemic.
The Prospect was told that the Secretary of State was unavailable for an interview.
Usually primary elections have comparatively low turnout, but this year New Jersey boasts several competitive races. This will add more pressure on local officials and their staffs to turn around results in a timely fashion. Although they’re lowering expectations from election night to a couple of days later, a successful election will bring confidence to the election process ahead of the massive turnout and pressure expected this November.
