We are just a few weeks from Election Day, on Tuesday, November 5, and campaigns are beginning to accelerate, from the local level on up the chain. This means that voters are learning more about the candidates for whom they are tasked with casting a vote. It stands to reason that the more information citizens have prior to selecting their candidate, the more informed that selection should be.
And yet, many informed voters will not have the opportunity to apply this newly gathered knowledge, because so many of them have sent in their vote-by-mail ballots weeks ago.
Let us be clear: we emphatically support voting by mail. It is a secure process that served a crucial purpose during the height of the pandemic, and continues to be a convenient way for citizens to participate in our democracy. We are certain that more individuals vote each year because the “barrier to entry” no longer necessitates going to a polling station during specific hours of a single day and waiting in a line. The more eligible people who take advantage of their right to vote, the better we are as a country, state, and town.
However, as we have noted in recent years, we strongly believe that the date that citizens receive their vote-by-mail ballots is far too early for them to make the most informed possible decision on all of the candidates.
Could people hold onto their ballots until a week or two before election day before sending them in? Of course. The deadline for mail-in ballots to be accepted in New Jersey is by 8 p.m. on Election Day for those mailed through a secure ballot drop box (one is located outside of Town Hall in Livingston) or delivered in person to the county Board of Elections office (465 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Newark). For regular mail, they must be postmarked before 8 p.m. on Election Day and be received by the county’s Board of Elections no later than six days after Election Day. Yet, we understand that while all of those votes surely count the same, people may want to ensure that their votes are taken as part of the unofficial tally come election night. To do this, many voters mail in their ballots not long after they are received, which, for most people, happened sometime in September, nearly two months prior to Election Day.
Surely, there are some logistical reasons for why these ballots are mailed out so early. We are all familiar with the trials and tribulations of the U.S. Postal Service in the past decade. Getting ballots too soon is certainly preferable to receiving them too late or not at all. And if there are any mistakes, getting them out early also gives citizens time to sort it out. But there has to be some sort of compromise here.
Even if we wait until a month prior to election day to send out the ballots, that should still provide citizens plenty of time to vote and sort out any issues, while giving the candidates more time to make their case and share crucial information with the voting public. It should be a goal of every voter to want to cast their ballots with as much knowledge about the candidates, and the relevant issues, as possible. The state of New Jersey should support this by waiting a little longer to start the voting process. While it is far too late to make any changes during this election cycle, we hope to see adjustments made for future years.
