The deadline to request a replacement ballot was October 23. HOWEVER, if you still haven’t gotten your ballot in the mail OR if you need a replacement, you can do one of the following:
You can go to the Hall of Records in Newark (465 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Newark, NJ) to request a ballot in person and vote that ballot Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 am – 2:00 pm.
You can go to the Essex County Educational Center (560 Northfield Ave., West Orange, NJ) on Thursday, October 29 from 9:00 am – 2:00 pm; Friday, October 30 from 9:00 am – 2:00 pm; and Saturday, October 31 from 9:00 am – 12 noon.
The ballot can be a little confusing to fill out, and voters need to follow the directions carefully. See this video for how to complete your mail-in ballot:
DROP BOX LOCATIONS
- Maplewood – 1618 Springfield Avenue (Maplewood Police Headquarter/South Orange-Maplewood Municipal Court)
- South Orange – Sloan Street gazebo at the South Orange Train Station
Track your ballot to ensure it was received here.
WHEN WILL WE KNOW THE OUTCOME OF THE ELECTION?
Note: while some NJ counties have already begun counting mail-in ballots (Essex County will begin 5 days before the election), because some ballots won’t be counted until after Nov. 3 (including provisional ballots), the official results might not be known until after Election Night.
“The more people who cast the ballot that was mailed to them, the more likely we are to have completed results sooner,” Alicia D’Alessandro, spokeswoman for the secretary of state told NJ.com. “The more people who vote in person, the longer the ballot counting process will extend beyond Election Day.”
Want to know more about how the Associated Press (AP) calls elections — especially this one? See this article:
“Since the start of the pandemic, there have been large increases in the number of mail ballots in many state primaries, a trend that will continue in the general election. Mail ballots take longer to process and count than Election Day votes cast at neighborhood polling places. Election officials have to open mail ballots, make sure the voter is registered and has filled out the correct ballot for their neighborhood. In some states, they check to make sure the signature matches the one on file or review a copy of an ID or an affidavit signed by a notary or a neighbor. Then they can count the vote.
Unless counties can start processing mail ballots well before Election Day, the count can drag on for days and weeks, like it did during this year’s primaries in Pennsylvania and New York.
In close races, counting delays can delay race calls. This is not new. For years, the AP has declared election winners in states that take weeks to count their votes, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah and Washington State….In 2020, the AP and the world should expect extended vote counts in more states.”
