New Jersey was holding a primary election Tuesday, but the winners of two closely watched congressional races and other contests likely won't be known for days while officials count hundreds of thousands of mail ballots.
As in Pennsylvania and other states that expanded the use of mail ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, many votes were cast well before Election Day, which was originally scheduled for June 2. With the Democratic presidential nominating contest effectively decided months ago, the races that attracted the most attention Tuesday were in two South Jersey congressional districts expected to be battlegrounds in November's general election.
In the 2nd District, college professor Brigid Callahan Harrison, former teacher Amy Kennedy, and lawyer Will Cunningham rallied supporters as they vied for the Democratic Party's nomination. The winner will face first-term Rep. Jeff Van Drew, the longtime Democrat who drew national attention when he broke with his party over the impeachment of President Donald Trump and became a Republican.
The primary became a proxy fight in an intraparty feud between the pro-Harrison South Jersey Democratic machine led by power broker George E. Norcross III, and Gov. Phil Murphy, who backed Kennedy.
Kennedy, the wife of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy of the storied political family, lent her campaign $500,000 and spent about $1.2 million. Harrison's campaign spent more than $400,000, with a boost from a $160,000 personal loan. General Majority PAC, an outside group airing TV commercials backing Harrison, spent $490,000 since June 24, records show, and Kennedy was supported by groups that spent at least $135,000.
Cunningham sought to energize progressive grassroots support, but failed to pick up the favorable ballot position associated with county parties' endorsements.
And in the 3rd District, former construction executive David Richter and former Burlington County freeholder Kate Gibbs were running for the GOP nomination to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Andy Kim. Richter lent his campaign $600,000 and has spent most of it, while Gibbs' campaign spent about $200,000 and was backed by an outside group that spent $225,000 on anti-Richter ads, according to Federal Election Commission records. Richter had previously planned to challenge Van Drew, but switched districts after Trump allies largely cleared the GOP primary field for the Democrat-turned Republican.
In Atlantic City, Democrats were also choosing between incumbent Mayor Marty Small Sr., Pamela Thomas-Fields, a planning and economic development specialist, and Jimmy Whitehead, a 63-year-old Navy veteran and energy expert who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Small took office after the previous mayor, Frank Gilliam, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and resigned.
Campaigns were anticipating relatively high voter participation, in part because most registered Democratic and Republican voters were automatically sent mail ballots under Murphy's order to conduct the election primarily by mail _ without needing to apply. Independent and inactive voters were sent mail ballot applications.
Stephanie Salvatore, superintendent of elections for Gloucester County, said turnout was much higher than usual for a primary election. Her office received 40,000 ballots before the polls opened Tuesday, she said, adding "we could easily hit 50,000."
That would exceed the 49,321 Gloucester County votes cast in the 2016 primary, when Bernie Sanders was still battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Part of Gloucester County is included in the 2nd District, which stretches from Burlington County to Cape May County.
"It just shows, if you make it convenient, people will do it," Salvatore said.
The state kept about half of its polling places open, primarily for voters with disabilities, people without permanent addresses, and others who couldn't or preferred not to vote by mail. But foot traffic appeared light Tuesday.
Instead, most votes were continuing to stream in Tuesday by mail, at drop boxes across the state, and by hand delivery to county elections offices.
"Today, the folks who have been reaching out to me have been asking about the ballot drop box locations," said Jesse Burns, head of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. "I haven't received a lot of polling place inquiries, but I have received a lot of ballot box location inquiries."
It remained to be seen if Republicans would vote by mail at a lower rate than Democrats like they did in Pennsylvania, given that Trump has repeatedly and falsely declared that voting by mail is rife with widespread fraud.
There was some socially distanced campaigning Tuesday. At the Vineland Soup Kitchen, Cunningham gave out cartons of meatballs and spaghetti in front of a church where, he recalled, he himself had gone to get food when he was a teenager experiencing homelessness with his single mom.
"This is a personal stop for me," said Cunningham, 34. "I ate here growing up."
Harrison had announced no appearances for Election Day, said her spokesperson Matthew Frankel. Kennedy was planning a 9 p.m. appearance, her campaign said.
Elections administrators reported low in-person turnout. The bigger headache Tuesday appeared to be long lines outside Motor Vehicle Commission locations _ which had previously been closed because of the coronavirus _ as people tried to renew licenses.
Murphy's order to run the election primarily by mail included a number of one-time changes, such as allowing mail ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received up to a week later. That was a key change, Burns said, along with the installation of drop boxes, in smoothing the vote-by-mail process.
The state also agreed last month _ settling a federal lawsuit brought by the League and others _ to notify all voters whose mail ballots are missing signatures or whose signatures do not match state records. Any voter whose ballot has a signature issue will be mailed a form allowing the ballot to be approved. (Almost 10% of mail ballots in New Jersey's May 12 municipal election were rejected, mostly because of signature problems.)
"This is a state that endeavored to provide fairly open access to vote by mail this season," Kristen Clarke, head of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The Lawyers' Committee runs the national Election Protection program, with the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline, to help voters. Most of the calls received Tuesday, Clarke said, came from voters who had a mail ballot problem of some kind, including not having received theirs on time.
Clarke said some voters were also confused about which polling places were open.
Still, voting appeared to proceed fairly smoothly Tuesday. Burns said she hoped the experience of running a large-scale vote-by-mail election will lead to changes in the future. For example, she said, the high usage of ballot drop boxes suggests more locations should be added.
She also warned that results will take longer than normal to count, and that people must be patient.
Normally, a significant share of votes are counted by election night, allowing news organizations and campaigns to use sophisticated models to project winners. This election, it will likely take days to have enough votes to call winners, and particularly close races could take a week or more.
The days-long process of counting mail ballots did not begin until Tuesday morning, and those ballots will continue to be accepted by mail for another week. And in-person votes cast at polling places, using provisional ballots, will not be counted until after that deadline.
Gloucester County workers had been counting ballots since 7 a.m. Tuesday at a warehouse in West Deptford, with two seated at each of the eight-foot tables spaced six feet apart, said Salvatore, the county's election superintendent.
She said the municipalities that held in-person voting Tuesday reported low but steady attendance, and that all seemed to be operating without problems.
"I hope the next week goes as smoothly as this, with counting the provisional ballots," Salvatore said. "Maybe we'll leave the excitement for the November election."
