The scoop on unaffiliated VBM, voter registration, sample ballot & voting July 7

Hi, Everyone,

Over the last two days, I have spoken with the MC Clerk of Elections, Voter Registration office, the MC Board of Elections office and reviewed Gov. Murphy's EO's. Here's what I have learned on VBM, voter registration, sample ballot & voting July 7:

VBM: Every "active" and "inactive" registered voter (2.3M+ Dem, 1.3M+ Rep, & 2.4M+ unaffiliated) will be receiving a mail-in ballot. The MC Clerk of Elections told me the following: party-affiliated voters will receive the ballot for their party. Unaffiliated voters will receive 2 ballots, one for each party with a section to designate their party affiliation on the envelope. The voter then marks their choice of party affiliation on the envelope, chooses the ballot corresponding to their chosen party affiliation, fills it out, places it in the envelope and mails it. Alternatively, the VBM ballots can be placed in a secure drop box outside their County Clerk of Elections Office at any time up to and including the day of the election July 7 (see section on voting July 7 below). VBM ballots must be postmarked by the day of the election and received by the elections office within 7 days. It was noted to me that normally the receipt deadline is 48 hours but that it has been extended to 7 days due to the current circumstance and anticipated heavy mail volume overload.

Voter registration: The voter registration deadline is 22 days prior to the election; in this case that deadline is June 16, end of business day (EBD). If a voter registration form is mailed in, it must be postmarked by June 16th. If a voter drops the form off to the post office on June 16, they must make sure that the post office stamps the envelope as postmarked June 16. No deadline for receipt is given; they just need to be received in time to be processed before the day of the election. Voter registration forms can also be dropped off to the county office of the Voter Registration in Freehold (or the appropriate town for your county) using a drop box outside. The drop box is not there 24/7; it is taken inside at EBD. The MC office in Freehold told me that the box was not put outside the last two days because of concerns of the security of the forms due to the high winds. While most days the EBD is 4:30 PM, the office will be staffed until 9 PM on June 16.

Sample ballot: The ballot itself has not been finalized, yet, so a sample ballot has not be finalized, either. However, the Clerk of Elections gave me the info on where the names will appear on the ballot. Since Bookers name was drawn first, the County Dems will be in Column A (I watched the drawing live and even seeing that the procedure seems fair, why does it still not surprise me that they got column A?). Larry Hamm, drawn second, and the "Not Me. Us." bracketed candidates will be in Column B in the following order downward: Senate (2nd row), Congress, County Clerk, Freeholders. So you'll find my name on one of the two Freeholder rows in Column B. Bernie will be first row of Column C. Congressional Candidate, Christine Conforti (CD4) will be in the appropriate row in Column D. I'll update this post with Congressional Candidate, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh's (CD6) ballot position tomorrow as I was not given that info today. Both requested to bracket with the "NMU" line, however, their requests were not received before the bracketing submission deadline.

Sample ballots will not be mailed to every registered voter this year, presumably because every registered voter will be receiving a mail-in ballot, anyway. A sample ballot will be available to view online at some point in the future but as the ballot has not yet been finalized, when it will be available online and what the URL will be is, as yet, undetermined.

Voting July 7: According to Gov. Murphy's EO-144, there will be a minimum of 5 secure ballot drop boxes around the county. When I spoke with the Board of Elections office, I was told that the NJ Secretary of State sets the number and the guidelines for this. There is a conference call set for tomorrow to go over this procedure and to get the SecState's guidance. With Monmouth County being so large (NJ's largest county), I expressed my concern that only 5 ballot drop boxes would not be enough to adequately cover the entire county and also expressed concerns that the boxes be accessible for voters without means to get to them, such as not driving, no access to public transportation and/or disabled and a concern for the security of the drop boxes themselves (IMHO, there will need to be someone present at them to prevent tampering). I was told that all of these concerns, along with the concern of security for the drop boxes will be addressed in tomorrow's conference call.

According to the same EO, in-person voting will also be available with at least 1 polling place in each municipality and at least 50% of the county's usual number of polling places; counties may open more than the minimum number of polling places at the county's discretion. Also (in short), CDC guidelines (distance, face covering, etc) are to be followed. However, "If a voter or person accompanying a voter refuses to comply with the CDC guidelines, a poll worker shall not deny entry to the voter or person." (Section 7:i; pg 8)

Note: Any voter who appears at a polling place on the day of the July primary will vote via a provisional ballot only. Mail-in ballots will not be accepted in-person at the polling places. That being said, a high-traffic, regular polling place may also be one of the locations for a VBM drop box. I'll be following up on this after the locations of the drop boxes has been finalized.

The deadline to certify a list of polling places for the July 7, 2020 Primary Election is June 15. No info, yet, on when that list of polling places will be made available but I will follow up on this once the list is certified.

That's all for now; I'll be following up more on these topics going forward and keep everyone informed of what I am told. I'll also be posting all of this to our relevant Facebook groups.

If anyone has any additional questions needing answers, let me know, please. I'll make the appropriate calls.

Thank you, everyone, for your support.

Stay safe and healthy, ~Angie