It may be a number of days before we know exactly how many people in New Jersey voted.
Jesse Burns, executive director of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, said they have 3.9 million votes in the early vote count. No numbers for Election Day yet. Also missing at this point are vote by mail ballots that haven’t arrived yet or been scanned yet.
Burns says Election Day around New Jersey was a mixed picture. “We saw really different situations across the state,” she said. “In some places there were lines and heavy voter turnout for in-person voting opportunities and some places, polling places were crickets.”
She said provisional ballots must also still be counted. Those are ballots that were brought to a polling place but can’t be counted until it is certain the voter did not also mail in a ballot.
Like most other places, voter turnout in New Jersey was heavy. It’ll take some time to crunch the numbers, but Burns said she wouldn’t be surprised if turnout ends up topping 70%.
Burns said she thinks voters showed up for a number of reasons rather than one in particular. “We’re dealing with a pandemic, economic issues, social unrest, political division, a lot of passion around this election,” she said.
Voting in Newark was marred by some late openings at polling places. In some cases, Burns said, an hour and a half late with some voters having to leave for work.