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Swamped by votes still to count, NJ election staff want changes
A flawed state system, they said, hampered mail-in voting
JEFF PILLETS | NOVEMBER 5, 2020 | NJ DECIDES 2020
Editor’s Note: This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan reporting project covering local election integrity and voting access. The article is available for reprint under the terms of Votebeat’s republishing policy.
Frontline workers in New Jersey’s almost all-mail election issued a collective “no mas” Wednesday as waves of late ballots and provisional votes piled up around the state, while anxious voters continued to press concerns about mail-in voting.
Officials said they spent much of the day gathering up tens of thousands of late-arriving mail ballots that had been collected from more than 300 drop boxes scattered across the state’s 21 counties.
Thousands more, they said, poured in, becoming a tsunami of people who chose to drop mail ballots at the limited polling places on Election Day.
“We’ve dedicated 30 phone lines and taken 29,000 phone calls from people asking how to do mail-in voting,” said Patti DiConstanzo, the Superintendent of Elections in Bergen County. “And after all that they still want to come into the polls and drop off their ballots!”
DiCostanzo and other election officials around the state surveyed by NJ Spotlight News described a variety of bureaucratic and technical flaws that continue to flummox workers awash in a record 4 million-plus ballots cast.
Among the workers’ deepest frustration is with the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission, which some residents used to register to vote. The computerized system blinked in and out of operation Tuesday, they said, so workers attempting to upload batches of votes to state computers found the system frozen or gummed up to the point of exasperation.
At other times, votes loaded into the system appeared to disappear, or were never registered, forcing workers to backtrack as ballots piled up. The state’s “Track My Vote” website also proved buggy and confusing to voters who reported trouble signing on and following the progress of their ballots.
“The state voter registration system is a complete mess,” said Richard Ambrosino, a Camden County election official. “We’ve had nothing but trouble with it.”
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Three things the election has revealed
(Getty)
By Caroline Mimbs Nyce, Senior associate editor, The Atlantic
1. This country remains deeply divided.
“The clearest message of this week’s complicated election results is that the trench is deepening between red and blue America,” Ronald Brownstein writes. Meanwhile, George Packer argues that it’s time to face a bitter truth: “We are two countries.”
2. The South has already changed.
Jaime Harrison lost to Lindsey Graham. “But his campaign allowed Democrats to imagine what was possible in his home state; it reminded national leaders why they should not write off the region,” Adam Harris writes.
3. Polling is in crisis.
“After two huge presidential flops, pollsters have lost the confidence of the press and public,” David A. Graham writes.
When Will We Know?
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The race is still close, but Joe Biden’s path to victory looks a little clearer.
When should you expect results from the remaining states? Our staff writer Derek Thompson offers a useful breakdown.
Arizona: Expect two batches of results: one around 9 p.m. ET tonight and another just after midnight.
Biden currently leads by about 90,000 votes, but networks are torn on whether to call the state, given uncertainty about the partisan lean of the outstanding ballots.
Georgia: We could get a complete answer tonight.
Key counties say they aim to wrap up their counts around 9 p.m. ET. Trump leads here by about 80,000 votes, but the remaining ballots are mostly in heavily Democratic areas, giving Biden narrow odds to flip the state.
Nevada: Check back tomorrow.
We should get a big update. Biden currently leads by only 7,000 votes, but the remaining ballots are expected to lean Democratic.
Pennsylvania: Check back tomorrow.
The secretary of the commonwealth said today that she expects full results “significantly sooner” than Friday. Well, today’s Wednesday, and we don’t seem to be particularly close to a full count in the state. Temporally speaking, that leaves Thursday as the only day sooner than Friday. Trump’s big lead in the state could be endangered as hundreds of thousands of outstanding mail ballots from cities such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are likely to go overwhelmingly to Biden.
North Carolina: Check back next week.
Mail-in ballots in North Carolina have until November 12 to arrive, and we might not know the winner of this state until mid-November.
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[Update] Murphy signs ban on plastic bags in NJ
By Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight
Gov. Phil Murphy today signed a bill that many call the nation’s toughest ban on single-use plastic and paper bags, a step advocates call the most important way to end plastic pollution in the environment.
The Legislature approved the bill (S-864) after a long battle, including a veto of a previous measure two years ago by the governor who considered it too weak. It had been a top priority of environmental groups for the past few years.
The legislation had faced opposition from various business groups, but the move by more than 50 local communities to enact their own plastic bag bans, often differing in scope and intent, led some organizations to back a single, statewide standard instead. Eight other states have enacted statewide bans on single-use plastic bags, but none have included single-use paper bag prohibitions.
Polystyrene-foam products also banned
Beyond the bans on single-use bags, which are largely confined to larger grocery stores, the law also prohibits polystyrene foam food-service products, typically used for carry-out food items, as well as limits on single-use plastic straws.
The bill includes many exemptions, among them for uncooked meat, poultry and fish wrapped in bags, prescription drugs from pharmacies and dry-cleaner plastic bags.
It establishes various times for the legislation to take effect, but generally the ban will not be effective for at least 18 months. The bill also allows for certain polystyrene manufacturers to obtain a waiver under certain conditions.
Plastic pollution
Plastic bags emerged as one of the leading causes of pollution in the ocean and other environments in recent years, according to numerous global studies, as well as a local one addressing the Raritan River. The bags break down and cause harm to wildlife and marine fisheries
If you liked this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed with the latest news, commentary and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.
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Election Day relatively trouble free so far
While there were no major reports of widespread problems for what is expected to be an historic turnout, there remains fears of violence or unrest at polling sites.
By By Erik Ortiz, Caroline Radnofsky and Charlie Gile, NBC News
Anxieties that Election Day would be marred by widespread voting problems, hacking or intimidation at the polls grew muted by Tuesday afternoon as the lessons of 2016 have so far helped to avoid the disarray of elections past, election officials and voter groups say.
While there have been routine issues during this Election Day, including malfunctioning machines at polling sites and the spreading of misinformation to confuse voters, fixes like more counties having contingency plans in the event of technical troubles seem to be working.
“At this point, this just looks like any other Election Day, and even just another Tuesday,” a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told reporters.
In the swing state of Pennsylvania, the nonpartisan Pennsylvania Election Protection Coalition said volunteers were documenting any potential threats toward voters at the polls, but “there have been no reports of intimidation.”
“So far, we’ve seen mostly the typical minor problems that we see on every Election Day,” Sara Mullen, advocacy and policy director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.
Election officials said that the record number of people who voted early — more than 100 million — was making it easier to deal with any malfunctions.
Read the full story
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Post Office ordered to rush delivery of mail-in election ballots
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Postal Service to sweep facilities to ensure “no ballots have been held up,” reports said.
By Megan VerHelst, Patch Staff
WASHINGTON, DC — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Postal Service to sweep facilities for any remaining mail-in ballots and to prioritize their delivery as Americans across the country continue to vote ahead of local election deadlines.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia ordered the Postal Service to conduct the sweep in a number of states by 3 p.m. ET, multiple news outlets including CNN reported.
The Postal Service said in court that about 300,000 ballots had been received but not scanned for delivery.
According to his ruling, Sullivan made the order “to ensure that no ballots have been held up and that any identified ballots are immediately sent out for delivery.”
The ruling affects districts in several key battleground states including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Florida.
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