IT’S LIKE THEY CAN’T WAIT TO VOTE’
DEMOCRATS IN NEWJERSEY ARE RETURNING MAIL BALLOTS AT RATES THAT OUT PACE REPUBLICANS
With less than three weeks to go before a pandemic-era election that is being conducted mainly by mail, Democrats in New Jersey are returning ballots at rates that outpace Republicans in some of the state’s most conservative strongholds.
In the rural north, on the Jersey Shore and in horse country, Democrats are beating Republicans to the mailbox — and the drop box — in an election where every voter was mailed a paper ballot to turn in by November 3.
In Ocean County, home to more Republicans than any other part of the state, nearly 39 per cent of registered Democrats had voted as of Wednesday, compared with 25 per cent of Republicans, county records show. Rural Sussex County had a nearly identical split: More than 39 per cent of Democrats had returned ballots by Wednesday, compared with 24 per cent of Republicans.
While many states have seen a surge in mail- in voting, New Jersey is one of only four states where the rate of return has already eclipsed 25 per cent of the state’s total turnout four years ago.
Sign of intensity
Pollsters, lawmakers and campaign consultants see it as a sign of intensity among Democrats eager to show their displeasure with a polarising president and a measure of distrust among Republicans toward mail voting — a method President Donald Trump has attacked, without evidence, as being ripe for fraud. Republican leaders say they expect a surge of in- person ballot delivery closer to Election Day.
Deep mistrust
“They’re very suspicious of the mail,” said state Sen. Joseph Pennacchio, a Republican chairman of the president’s reelection campaign in New Jersey who is recommending voters use drop boxes. “If you had a $ 100 bill, would you trust putting $ 100 in the mail? Of course not.”
Political analysts say the mail- in trend could suggest more trouble for Republicans already fighting to retain a foothold in an increasingly liberal state.
County clerks were required to mail ballots to every registered voter in New Jersey no later than October 5. In many parts of the state, election officials began issuing ballots in the middle of September, enabling voters to submit their ballots more than a month before Election Day by mail, or to an election office or secure drop box. Residents may also hand deliver paper ballots on November 3 to their polling place or an election office; people with disabilities can request to use voting machines.
As it did in other states, the Trump campaign sued New Jersey to try to block mail voting and early ballot counting, expected to start in just over a week. Pennacchio said the shift to paper ballots was a political power play by Democrats, dressed up as a pandemic- related safety necessity.
“There is no reason in the world that New Jersey cannot vote in person,” said Pennacchio.
Changing numbers
The ballots trickling in offer only an early snapshot of voter response to the broadest test of mail voting in New Jersey, and the numbers are changing by the day. But the rate of return has raised eyebrows.
In Hunterdon County, Republicans control county government and outnumber Democrats by about 13,000 voters. But by the end of last week, 43 per cent of its registered Democrats had voted, comparedwith 25 per cent of Republicans in a county that sits within Malinowski’s district.
“It says there’s a real passion,” said Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican from Hunterdon County and the only woman to be elected governor in New Jersey.
But support in New Jersey for a Republican Party overhauled in the image of Trump is also on clear display in the full- throated embrace of the president by Republicans locked in close congressional races in swing districts. A campaign- style event in February featuring Trump in Wildwood, New Jersey, drew thousands of ardent fans, many of whom endured freezing temperatures as they waited in line for two days.
New Jersey is one of just four states where the early rate of ballot return is already more than 25 per cent of its total turnout in 2016, according to the United States Elections Project, an information hub run by
Political analysts say the mail- in trend could suggest more trouble for Republicans already fighting to retain a foothold in New Jersey. As it did in other states, the Trump campaign sued the increasingly liberal state to try to block mail voting and early ballot counting.
Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida.
Pandemic connection
Jesse Burns, executive director of the non- partisan League of Women Voters of New Jersey, said she believed the uptick in voting was directly linked to the pandemic.
Voters this year are animated not only by marquee races, she said, but by elections for local school boards and county legislatures, which became far more relevant to their day- today lives as residents struggled to find virus testing sites or adapted to remote education.