Election 101: Morris County final numbers are days away

Morris County Election Commissioners Matt Clarkin, Democrat of Parsippany; Diana Rochford, Republican of Morris Plains; and Laurie Brownstein, Democrat of Kinnelon, Election Day 2020. Not pictured: John Murphy, Republican of Morris Township. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
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Dale Kramer, administrator for the Morris County Board of Elections, has worked elections for 34 years.  How does this one compare?

“No comment,” Kramer said Thursday, with a weary laugh.

The numbers speak for themselves in this all-paper, pandemic presidential election of 2020: It’s going to be many days before candidates in local races know for sure whether to serve champagne or sour grapes.

Kramer’s 30-person team of staffers and paid volunteers in Morristown has received 276,000 ballots via drop boxes and mail from across the county.

Through Thursday afternoon, some 131,677 of those ballots had been counted, Kramer said.

That leaves 144,323 ballots to be opened, verified and machine-tabulated.

The Board of Elections, which started verifying mail ballots on Oct. 24 and counting them on Oct. 28, has been processing about 18,000 ballots per day, said Diana Rochford, one of four commissioners scrutinizing ballots for mismatched signatures and other discrepancies.

At that rate, it should take about eight days to complete the counting.

But wait–ballots still may arrive from the Postal Service. Anything postmarked on Election Day will be counted if received by Nov. 10.

Starting on Nov. 11, the board is scheduled to begin processing 12,500 provisional ballots. That’s a laborious process, because these ballots, filled out at municipal polling places on Election Day, must be checked against election records to ensure these voters already did not submit ballots by mail.

Approximately 1,800 more ballots have been received electronically from voters overseas, according to the board.

Commissioners — two Republicans and two Democrats — have raised questions about voter signatures on approximately 600 ballots, said Matt Clarkin, a Democratic commissioner from Parsippany.

Those voters will be contacted; they have until Nov. 17 to “cure” their signature discrepancies so their ballots can be counted, Kramer said.

The Board of Elections has until Nov. 20 to send final results to Morris County Clerk Ann Grossi, who must certify them to the state by Nov. 23.

Numbers have been updated each afternoon on the clerk’s website.

Grossi issued a statement on Thursday to correct a public “misimpression” that she was responsible for counting the ballots and that final results already were posted.

“Although many may have believed that the results posted on Election Night were complete, that was not the case. While complete results will occur, it will happen over a longer period of time,” Grossi reiterated in a video.

Another misconception, Kramer said, is that voters who log onto a state tracking site can learn immediately if their mail ballot has been received and accepted.

That confirmation won’t be available until after the ballots are counted, according to Kramer, who said her office has been fielding many voter calls about this.

“I hear the calls in my sleep,” Kramer said.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. If 360,000 mailed out ballots were sent out in October, and on election nite more then 200,000 vote by mail ballots were returned, and on November 6th 150,514 were returned that makes 350,514 ballots returned for the count. Matt Clarkin reported that 276,000 ballots were returned along with 12,500 municipal polling place votes and 1,800 oversea electronic votes that makes 290,300. is it true that 70,300 more votes need to be counted. Please explain

    Thank you

  2. The NY Times lists the percentage of votes counted in every county in The US and the list online Friday at 230 said 45 pc of the ballots in Morris county had been counted, which is lower than any county than Burlington Vermont at 23 Is that a mistake or a typo by the Times?

  3. My ballot is noted as “received” on the Track my Ballot feature on NJ site. When will it be noted as “Accepted?”

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