Voters can expect local election results — school board, municipal government, and county freeholders — as late as November 23 this year. Local ballots are typically tabulated by municipal clerk’s offices and unofficially released by the close of Election Day. “This year is very different because of COVID,” says Montgomery Township Deputy Clerk Marge Crawford. “Being that votes are not counted here this year, we will have to get the results from the county,” she says.
This year county officials have until November 23 to report official election results to the Secretary of State. In addition, county election officials in New Jersey are allowed to receive mail-in ballots until 8 pm on November 10. Voters may opt to go to the polls on Election Day, but only disabled voters will be allowed to use a machine. In-person voters without a documented disability will have to cast paper provisional ballots. In-person voters will notice that a provisional ballot looks like a mail-in ballot.
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Voting in-person?
Your vote will likely be counted last. Local voters should know that provisional ballots are counted last. County election officials “start” to count the paper provisional ballots on November 10, which is the last day they can receive mail-in ballots. County officials log the mailin ballots first, then count the provisional ballots to make sure no voter casts two ballots. The Somerset County clerk has mailed out a record-breaking number of ballots — more than 250,000 ballots. For comparison, about 150,000 votes were cast in the last presidential election year in 2016. The county expected to begin counting ballots sometime after Oct 24 but before election day, according to county spokesman Nathan Rudy. More than six million ballots were issued to voters statewide as of late October, according to the state Division of Elections.
