by Natalia Mittelstadt
A New Jersey judge will decide whether to count about 1,900 absentee ballots from Atlantic County in the congressional primary after ballots were opened prematurely.
On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Blee will hear arguments on whether 1,909 absentee ballots cast Tuesday in both the Democratic and Republican primary elections will be counted after ballot envelopes were opened too early, – reported the Associated Press.
The outcome of the hearing could have an impact on the Democratic primary in the 2nd Congressional District, where businessman Joe Salerno currently leads attorney Tim Alexander by about 400 votes in unofficial results.
State law allows election officials to open absentee ballots five days before Election Day, but 1,909 absentee ballots were opened about a month before Tuesday’s primary election. However, Creed Pogue, a Democrat appointed to the Atlantic County Board of Elections, said the ballots were not removed when the envelopes were opened.
Pogue argued that election workers made a mistake by adding timestamps to the inner envelopes containing absentee ballots. Historically, timestamps were only placed on the outer envelope, which contained no voter-identifying information, but now they are placed on inner envelopes to improve ballot tracking. However, the machine that added the timestamps was still programmed to open the envelopes.
“Through no fault of their own, through an innocent mistake, this should not have disenfranchised a voter, especially when there was no evidence of malicious intent and no evidence of any manipulation,” Pogue said. “We should therefore make sure that these ballots are counted and that the wishes of voters are known.”
During Tuesday’s board of elections meeting, Pogue and a second Democratic member voted in favor of the motion to accept previously open ballots, while two Republican members voted against.
Atlantic County Republican Committee Chairman Don Purdy said based on interviews with election workers, he believed the opening of ballots was intentional because it took several days. Officials would have realized it immediately if it was a mistake and stopped the process, he argued.
“I’m not saying throw away these ballots. “I argue that the electoral process has been compromised,” Purdy said. “You can’t fix something unless you admit there is a problem and fix it.”
The state attorney general’s office wrote in a court filing Thursday that state law does not advise local governments what action to take if inner envelopes are opened prematurely, and asked a judge to overturn the board of elections’ equal votes to accept or reject the ballot. to vote.
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Natalia Mittelstadt is a reporter for Just the News.
