Thousands of New Jersey voters received the wrong mail-in ballots, which listed the incorrect congressional district, this week — just weeks ahead of the November 3 election.
Nearly 25 percent of the ballots sent to Teaneck residents, 6,867 ballots of 28,151, listed the wrong congressional district. However, County Clerk John Hogan has since assured that voters will receive the correct ballot soon.
NorthJersey reported:
Hogan said the problem occurred at a private mailing company. The county contracts with a private company that prints the ballots, and that company contracts with a mailing company to stuff the envelopes and mail them out.
Teaneck, which has roughly 40,000 people and about 28,000 voters, is split into two congressional districts, the 5th and the 9th. 1,325 5th District voters received ballots with the 9th District race on it and a similar problem affected roughly 5,542 9th District ballots, Hogan said.
According to the outlet, the Bergen County Board of Elections is aware of who received incorrect ballots, and those will be voided in the event of the voter sending in the correct ballot. If they do not, the incorrect ballot will be counted, minus the incorrect congressional race, per the outlet.
Similarly, over 2,000 Los Angeles County voters recently received the faulty ballots, which were missing the section to cast a vote for a candidate vying for the presidency.
In August, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced that the state would embrace the vote-by-mail model used in the state’s primary and apply it to the general election.
“We’re going to extend that model into the general election in November. Most importantly, we’ve learned some lessons, including we’re going to have more presence of secure drop boxes,” Murphy said at the time.
‘Make sure there is that physical, in-voting capacity. And as it relates to mail-in ballots, the good news is in a general election, it doesn’t matter what party you’re in, everybody gets a ballot,” he added.
Mass mail-in voting has been met with growing skepticism. Over 1,600 uncounted ballots from the Garden State’s July 7 primary were discovered in a mislabeled bin last month and swiftly counted in the final tally. Notably, the additional ballots did not alter the outcome of the election.