New Jersey residents who vote in person won’t have ballots counted for a week

In-person New Jersey voters won’t have their ballots counted till at least Nov. 10, state officials say.

That’s because the state wants to have all of its mail-in ballots tallied beforehand in a bid to fight fraud, and the deadline for local election officials to receive the final mail-ins, which must be postmarked by Nov. 3, is seven days after Tuesday’s general election, or Nov. 10.

Under New Jersey’s system, every validated mail-in ballot will be recorded in a statewide database — and officials will be alerted if someone who mails in a ballot tries to also vote in-person Tuesday.

“If we receive both, the vote-by-mail ballot will be counted first,” said Nicole DiRado, administrator for the Union County Board of Elections, to NJ.com. “Then there is no way we can enter a provisional ballot for counting.”

New Jersey’s system varies significantly from New York’s.

In New York, residents were allowed nine days of in-person early voting before Election Day. Others can now can head to voting machines at their local polling sites to cast in-person ballots Tuesday.

New York’s early in-person votes and Election Day in-person ballots will be counted first.

But New Jersey did not allow early in-person voting. Instead, it sent mail-in ballots to all of its more than 6 million registered voters.

Well over half of those voters have already mailed in their ballots. The rest have till Tuesday to either vote in person at their local polling site or send in their mail-in ballots either by way of area drop-boxes or the Postal Service or handing them to a poll worker or their county office.

For New Jersey voters going to the polls, most will be filling out paper ballots, not using the machines as in past years, thanks to COVID-19.

Only those with a disability excuse will be allowed to use a machine.

The state will be considering the in-person paper ballots “provisional,’’ so they still have to be certified and counted by each County Commissioner of Registration’s office — a process that doesn’t start till Nov. 10.

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