Concerned about voting by mail in NJ? Here's your last-minute guide to 2020 primary elections
Carly Q. RomalinoTuesday will be one of New Jersey's most unconventional elections.
It's been rescheduled from June 2 due to COVID-19 safety concerns.
And for the first time, the governor has mandated a near-all vote-by-mail primary election.
What does this mean for voter turn-out, ballot security and coronavirus safety for the election in which political parties decide who will represent them on the general election ballot in November?
Courier Post reporter Carly Q. Romalino discussed fraud and other concerns with Gloucester County's Superintendent of Elections Stephanie Salvatore.
WATCH the full interview here:Voting by mail have you worried? An elections guru talks security
What's a primary election?
Tuesday's election - which would typically fall on the first Tuesday in June - is the election in which each party decides who it wants to represent them on the ballot in November.
What's different in this election?
Every voter who is registered as either a Democrat or Republican in New Jersey received a vote by mail ballot for the 2020 primary election on Tuesday, July 7. Even inactive voters would have received this ballot. This was possible through an order signed by the governor in the midst off the coronavirus crisis.
This is a closed primary, meaning only voters who have declared a party may vote. Unaffiliated voters in the state instead received an application to declare a party. If they chose to declare a party, they would then receive the vote-by-mail ballot.
For this election, just one polling location in each town will be open.
Salvatore said staffing of polling locations was difficult for this election. Many poll workers indicated they would not work during the pandemic. Salvatore explained many usual polling locations - schools, churches and community centers - have not been open for months and were not able to open for the election.
Just 24 of Gloucester County's 97 usual polling locations will be open Tuesday.
Check with your county's office of elections for updated polling locations. (Links are below)
Returning your ballot
The easiest way to return your vote-by-mail ballot is to put it in the standard mail.
But Salvatore understands your vote is sacred and you may not want to lose track of it once it's in the United States Postal Service system.
Until polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, offices of elections throughout the state must be available to receive ballots in person.
In addition, ballot "mail boxes" are located throughout each county. Gloucester County's are located at Salvatore's office of elections at 550 Grove Road in West Deptford, and in Clayton, Mantua, Monroe and Woolwich townships.
Ballot boxes are under video surveillance, Salvatore said.
A Sheriffs Department officer collects the ballots multiple times a day and delivers them to Salvatore's office.
The ballots are kept in a water- and fire-proof vault that is also under video surveillance.
Overwhelming number of paper ballots expected
More paper ballots than ever in New Jersey will be cast for Tuesday's election. Offices of elections have been planning accordingly for months.
Camden County launched a initiative last year to increase voter turnout by promoting the vote-by-mail service. Four years ago, the county sent out just 16,000 vote by mail ballots. In November, it's independent push for mailed votes saw more than 32,000 returns -— and it wasn't even a Presidential Election vote, deputy county clerk John Schmidt said in the fall. To count that number of paper ballots, the county hired about 100 poll workers to start opening the ballots at midnight to prepare them for tallying at 6 a.m. on Election Day.
Gloucester County would expect about 4,000 vote by mail ballots to be returned in a typical Presidential Primary election, Salvatore said.
But with more than 180,000 ballots sent to households in her county through the governor's order, her office had already received 40,000 the Thursday before elections, Salvatore reported.
Counting each vote
At 7 a.m., poll workers in Gloucester County must report to the West Deptford Office of Elections, according to Salvatore.
These workers are a mix of locals registered as Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters.
They will be checked in at a tent in front of the building, where their temperatures will be checked before entry the facility, a pandemic policy.
Seated on each end of 8-foot tables that are all six feet apart, the masked and latex-gloved day workers will begin the procedures of opening ballots.
A mail sorter - purchased for the Gloucester County elections office to reduce elections headquarters workers' exposure to COVID-19 - has already sorted the ballots by town.
Each vote-by-mail ballot is layered, with multiple envelopes that detach to keep the voter's and their ballot selections separate and secret.
Each workers starts their stack by separating the voter's name from the outer envelope off the ballot.
Then, the ballot is unfolded, write-in votes are recorded and the ballots are looked over for any rogue markings. Any ballots that have rogue markings or half-filled selections will be placed aside for hand counting.
Ballots returned by voters already categorized as "inactive" on the mailing list will be flagged for investigation to rule out fraud by confirming the person votes just once, does indeed live in the county, and is in fact alive, Salvatore said.
State offices of election have only been linked to the state's departments of vital statistics, corrections and motor vehicle commission since January, she said.
Everything that looks clear is stacked for the next phase - electronic counting.
An outside vendor - staffed by experts who are not affiliated politically - carefully, but quickly runs each ballot through scanning machines to record the votes.
The process continues as ballots come in throughout the day until polls close at 8 p.m.
Ten members of the National Guard have been assigned to Gloucester County and other county offices of election to assist in running ballots between the workers and the vendors tallying the votes.
Your county's voting information:
Carly Q. Romalino is a Gloucester County native who's covered South Jersey since 2008. She's a Rowan University graduate and a six-time New Jersey Press Association award winner.
She is the Courier Post's "watch dog," taking deep dives into matters throughout the region.
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