Hanlon: Nationwide Election Results Could Be Held Up By Murphy’s Vote By Mail Law

By Christine Giordano Hanlon

New Jersey’s new Vote by Mail law, signed by Gov. Murphy in August, has the potential to leave voters hanging on Election Night, not just in New Jersey, but across the country.  Candidates and voters should be aware that the results on Election Night may be far from final.

With recent polls suggesting that the New Jersey Senate race is tighter than many anticipated, and with several New Jersey congressional races polling within the margin of error, the new law could cause the entire nation to be left wondering which party will control of the U.S. House or Senate come January.

Two provisions in the new law will impact the tallying of election results on Election Night. First, the new law required that any voter who received a mail-in ballot in 2016 be sent a ballot this year, even though the voter did not request one. The only way a voter would not receive a mail-in ballot is if that voter opted out of the mail-in system in writing prior to the statutory deadline (Sept. 22) for county clerks to begin issuing mail-in ballots for the November general election.

As a result, thousands of voters who voted by mail in 2016 were sent mail-in ballots for the November general election although they did not make requests.

According to New Jersey law, no voter who is issued a mail-in ballot may vote on a voting machine on Election Day. Such a voter can only vote on a paper provisional ballot if he or she goes to the polls on Election Day to cast a vote. County clerks statewide are anticipating that a large number of these voters who received ballots they did not request will show up at the polls to vote.

In anticipation of this scenario, many county clerks will be providing extra provisional ballots for these voters at polling locations, but this may delay the voting process and result in long lines at the polls. Also, these provisional ballots are not counted until after Election Day after a lengthy review process. This process could take up to a week, sometimes longer.

The new law also changed the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots by the county boards of elections.  Prior to this law, all mail-in ballots had to be received by the election boards by close of the polls in order to be counted and included in the election results.  The results of the mail-in ballots were tallied by close of the polls or shortly thereafter, then added into the election night voting machine tallies.

Christine Giodano Hanlon is the Monmouth County Clerk