About 7,000 provisional paper ballots that officially will determine the winner in the close race in New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District were delivered to the boards of elections in Burlington County and Ocean County Wednesday morning so that the counting could begin.
On Wednesday afternoon, The Associated Press called the race for Andy Kim, the Democratic former national security aide to Barack Obama. He would be the first Asian-American elected from New Jersey and the first Democrat elected in the 3rd District since 2008. Kim has never run for or served in elected office before.
The race, which is being watched nationally, pits Kim against two-term Republican Tom MacArthur, a close Trump ally who backed repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Kim declared himself the victor last Wednesday night after forging ahead with a 2,600 vote lead, but MacArthur said he wanted to wait until all the votes are counted.
Representatives for Kim and MacArthur did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the counting continued.
In Republican-leaning Ocean County, which comprises less than half of the 3rd District, the board there was busy examining the 2,400 provisional ballots cast in the 3rd District race and announced the counting would likely continue into the evening. The board disqualified 20 ballots that were cast by voters who had already submitted a vote-by-mail ballot before showing up at the polls. It also discussed whether to ask a judge to decide whether 45 provisionals that were brought to headquarters in an unsealed bag should be counted.
In Democratic-leaning Burlington, Superintendent of Elections George Kotch sent about 4,500 provisionals to the board of elections Wednesday morning after his staff spent 10-13 hour days since Saturday analyzing them to see if they were valid.
Kotch said about 95 percent of the provisionals were deemed eligible to be counted and were stamped "registered voter" in red before they were turned over to the board.
Board Chairman Joseph Dugan said Wednesday that the board's staff would spend the day matching the ballots up with Kotch's findings so that the board can begin its count on Thursday morning.
"We expect to have it done by the end of the day, possibly late into the night," Dugan said.
Meanwhile, the Ocean County Board of Elections _ comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats _ went through a checklist and voted on which provisional ballots to accept. Among the items they had to review was whether the ballot came from a voter whose address didn't match the listing in the poll books when the voter showed up to cast a ballot. In the morning session the board voted to disqualify 285 provisional ballots turned in by people who were not registered.
Based on the machine ballots and vote-by-mail ballots, Kim had an unofficial 3,427-vote lead against MacArthur. Some Burlington County election officials said Kim's lead is likely to hold even after the provisional votes are counted because most are in Burlington County.
With Andy Kim's apparent victory in New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District, the region's congressional districts have become more heavily Democratic compared with two years ago. Use the slider below to compare the two maps. Pennsylvania's districts were redrawn earlier this year by the state Supreme Court.
On election night, MacArthur was leading by 2,300 votes, but Kim declared victory the following night after Burlington County finished counting its vote-by-mail ballots, which gave him a 2,600-vote lead out of 295,000 votes tallied.
