The polls opened Oct. 25 for early in-person voting as New Jersey residents consider who they want to be their next governor.
Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Republican former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli are vying to fill the seat of term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy.
The 2024 presidential election saw a record number of New Jersey voters participate in early voting with 1,172,842 ballots cast during the nine-day period.
In 2023, just 124,197 people used the early in-person voting option. The opportunity to vote early in person was first made available in New Jersey in 2021.
Though both candidates have rallies scheduled to encourage voters to head to the polls, a new record isn’t likely.
Historically, gubernatorial elections see a much lower turnout than during a presidential election. The 2016 presidential election drew 68% of voters to the polls while the 2017 governor’s race saw 39% turnout. In 2020, 72% of New Jersey voters cast a ballot compared to 40% in 2021, according to state records.
As of Oct. 1, there are 6,609,895 registered voters with 2,525,346 declared as Democrats and 1,670,297 declared as Republicans.
Democratic candidate profile: Who is Mikie Sherrill, NJ’s Democratic candidate for governor?
Republican candidate profile: Who is Jack Ciattarelli, NJ’s Republican candidate for governor?
How many mail-in ballots are in?
While the polls are just opening, voting has been underway for weeks around the Garden State as vote-by-mail ballots were sent out Sept. 20.
According to the state’s Division of Elections, 439,554 have been returned as of Oct. 24. There were 930,536 issued so that’s about 47% back.
Voters who were issued a mail-in ballot are expected to vote using that ballot. If they go to a polling place to cast a vote in person instead, they’ll only be able to vote via provisional ballot instead of on a machine in the traditional way. The electronic pollbook at their polling location will indicate that they already received a ballot.
Provisional ballots are used as a way to defend against voter fraud. They are cast by voters whose eligibility to vote cannot be confirmed at the polls on Election Day or if they have applied for a vote-by-mail ballot. If, after the election, it is determined that the voter who cast the provisional ballot was eligible to vote, the ballot will be counted.
The polls will be open at designated early voting locations in each county from Oct. 25 through Nov. 2. There will be no polling locations open Nov. 3.
Election Day is Nov. 4 and polling locations in each municipality will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: [email protected]
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: mail-in ballots NJ governor’s race
