By Allison Perrine
MONMOUTH COUNTY – In July, the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders passed a resolution opposing the exclusive use of mail-in ballots for the upcoming November election. Now, Two River towns are following suit.
Municipalities including Highlands, Shrewsbury, Colts Neck, Sea Bright and Atlantic Highlands have since passed resolutions opposing the move to vote-by-mail only elections in their towns. The resolutions do not prevent anyone from voting by mail, however.
“If it was going to change how Highlanders were going to vote, we wanted them to make that decision,” Highlands Mayor Carolyn Broullon told The Two River Times. Should the borough decide they want to do all vote-by-mail elections in the future, she said the town would put it up for a referendum first to see what residents would want.
“We wanted to make that clear – it has nothing to do with being a partisan or nonpartisan town,” she said. “We felt that our voters should determine how they want to vote.”
As noted in Highlands Borough’s Resolution No. 20-187, New Jersey residents have been able to request vote-by-mail ballots long before the COVID-19 pandemic. And according to the county, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal charged individuals with illegally collecting and processing ballots in a Paterson election this year. Allegedly, votes had been cast in the names of deceased residents and by those who indicated they did not receive mail-in ballots.
“My fellow Freeholders and I are gravely concerned as the exclusive mail-in ballot ‘experiment’ has been difficult at best and should not be conducted when selecting individuals to lead Boards of Educations, political parties and bodies of government,” said Freeholder Director Thomas A. Arnone in a press release. “As we have seen repeatedly in the past, using mail-in ballots increases the risk of voter fraud and causes delays in counting ballots.”
Atlantic Highlands Mayor Loretta Gluckstein highlighted to The Two River Times that anyone interested in voting by mail or voting provisionally already had the option to do so before the pandemic struck. And under the governor’s orders to conduct the election primarily by mail, fewer people would vote at the machines which “only takes a few short minutes,” but still allows people to vote provisionally at the polling locations, “which takes more than 10 minutes.”
“I know that while going out into our town, we found probably about a dozen voters who received letters saying that their votes were void for the (primary election),” she said. “Quite a few people in town told us about how they had issues with the primary.”
The borough ultimately passed the resolution at the Sept. 10 meeting, but not without some debate. At the meeting, Gluckstein said she spoke with several borough residents who believe their right to vote is being “jeopardized by not being able to go in” to their respective polling locations.
And councilman James Murphy said his father opted to vote by mail in the July primary and received a notice that his vote did not count. He filled out his information and even had a poll worker look it over to confirm everything was accurate, he said, and the poll worker said everything was filled out correctly.
“So, he walked away and mailed it out, and the next thing you know a few weeks later – got a letter saying that his vote wasn’t counted,” said Murphy, because something wasn’t checked off. “I think there’s plenty concern from multiple residents… that’s what’s driving the opposition, or at least the concern of this.”
Some were more hesitant about the idea. Atlantic Highlands resident Marilyn Scherfen said like the mayor, she is concerned with people not getting to vote. But she asked that the council not pass the resolution because there are “several reasonable options” for residents to return their ballots by mail, at a drop box and at the county elections office.
“We don’t know what COVID-19 has in store for us in November. What we do know is that vote-by-mail ballots allow us to plan, choosing a safe and secure option no matter how devastating the virus might be then,” said Scherfen. “I’m sure all of you want the maximum number of people to be able to vote, so please vote against this resolution.”
Resident James Krauss said he would “much prefer” to be able to go into the voting booth but understands the need for universal mail-in voting this year. He also believes a vote-by-mail election this year could increase voter turnout and suggested that the council turn down the resolution. “I think participation is what democracy is all about,” he said. “The universal mail-in ballot system that we have to use this year is really a symptom; it’s not the disease.”
The resolution passed in the borough with four ‘Yes’ votes from council members Brian Boms, Stephen Boracchia, James Murphy and Mayor Gluckstein – all Republicans – and ‘No’ votes from council members Jon Crowley, Roy Dellosso and Lori Hohenleitner – all Democrats.
Shrewsbury Borough Mayor Erik Anderson told The Two River Times he has a number of concerns about all vote-by-mail elections in New Jersey, one reason being that the system currently is not “set to handle” primarily vote-by-mail elections.
“I think there’s issues with concern about the integrity, potentially, of the election,” said Anderson, referring to the findings of the primary election in Sussex County which found 1,600 ballots that were mislabeled. “It’s a concern of voter confusion also; I don’t think the state has done a very good job in educating the voters on how to vote in the upcoming election.”
He also noted that vote-by-mail ballots can take longer to process and we live in a world that is adjusted to instant results. And from a “practical standpoint,” he said, “it doesn’t make sense that the governor will let us stand in line for DMV two or three hours but I can’t go stand in line for five minutes to go vote,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to make sense.”
The article originally appeared in the September 17 – 23, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
