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JerseySmarts.com

Not All of the Ballots Are Counted…Yet

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Believe it or not, there are still ballots left to be counted from last night’s Gubernatorial election. Specifically, there are a number of vote by mail ballots that have not yet been accounted for in a number of areas throughout the state. For example, I am a voter in Mount Arlington in Morris County and my vote by mail ballot hasn’t been recorded on the county’s unofficial election results for the borough yet.

Earlier today I sent an e-mail to the County Clerk asking about when the vote by mail ballots would be posted. Here is my e-mail:

In reviewing the election results from last night I noticed that none of the absentee/vote by mail ballots have been tallied. As a vote by mail voter, this concerns me. Could you let me know when these votes will be tallied and added to the MorrisElectionResults.org website?

This is the response that I received:

I am emailing you on behalf of the County Clerk, Joan Bramhall regarding your question about the Mail In Ballots. The Board of Elections is responsible for counting the ballots and they were still counting them past 12am last night. We did receive the count this morning and they should be uploaded to the web before noon today.

That’s a sufficient response for me. I’ll keep checking back to the link above to see when my vote by mail ballot is going to hit. Should 1:00pm or 2:00pm roll around and that unofficial election results page not be updated, I’ll have to contact the County Clerk’s office again. In any event, I’m sure that there aren’t enough vote by mail ballots out there to swing the Gubernatorial election – especially when some of those voters cast their vote for Christie, like I did.

Considering All Absentee Ballot, All the Time

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Being a political junkie, I tend to troll over a variety of websites looking for the latest and greatest information on local, state, and national politics. While looking over the Morris County Clerk’s website I stumbled onto the Civilian Absentee Ballot Application. Reading through the information on the pre-application page and the application itself, I learned that I can choose to receive absentee ballots for all future general elections.

In other words, I can fill out this application and then always have a ballot sent to whatever address that I want so I can be sure to vote in whatever general election is upcoming. I had no idea that I could do this, but it sounds like a great idea!

Some of you may know that I rent an apartment in Tinton Falls which is about an hour and a half from my voting station in Mount Arlington. As such, Election Day always presents a logistical problem for me since I have to factor a three-hour drive into my schedule. Voting by absentee ballot would be much more efficient. Some additional research into the Morris County Clerk’s website shows that no one voted by absentee ballot in Mount Arlington during this year’s election. While that may seem suspect to some people, there were only some 2,493 votes cast in the entire Borough. To assume that there were no absentee ballots cast this year is not that far of a stretch.

However, the ability to have a perpetual absentee ballot is a great option for someone like me who is generally moving to a new place every few years. Sure, I intend to register in which ever municipality where I wind up purchasing a home, but that’s not coming any time soon. Plus, because I’m constantly reading up on the local news I might even be more aware of political issues going on in my hometown than some of the folks who are voting up there anyway!

When you think about it, the application of the perpetual absentee ballot is powerful. Unfortunately, there are some people who just do not want to go to the polling stations to cast their votes. Some might be hindered because of their jobs and others might be hindered because of their personal schedules. In New Jersey, where we do not have early voting, receiving an absentee ballot that has to be mailed in to the County Clerk’s Office some 7 days prior to the election may increase the possibility that more eligible voters will vote.

I’m going to look into this some more, but I’m strongly considering going to an all-absentee ballot, all the time setup for future general elections (school board and primary elections do not apply).

Voter Turnout Lower in 2008 Than 2004?

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There are many reasons why Senator Barack Obama became President-Elect Barack Obama, but was one of those reasons a higher voter turnout? Don’t count on it. Looking at Wikipedia’s page for the 2004 Presidential election we can see that the Bush vs. Kerry election saw some 121 million (121,069,054 to be exact) people turn out to vote. Looking at CNN.com’s coverage of the 2008 election we can count some 120 million (120,366,599 to be exact) people turning out to vote for the Obama vs. McCain contest.

Not only is that not an increased voter turnout, but it’s lower than the last election! Sure, there may be some absentee ballots that need to be counted and after a recount here and there the total number of voters in 2008 might go up a few thousand, but even if the total number of votes cast should rise some astronomical number to 125 million, that’s still NOT the bigger turnout that all of the pundits (and the politicians) expected for this election cycle.

This tells us a few things. First, there was NOT some large groundswell of voter motivation to go out and vote in the most historic election of our time. Second, if the electorate remained essentially the same, then the inherent voter apathy in America was not changed in this election (which is a damn shame). Third, those who voted in 2004 and then voted again in 2008 must have been more likely to be open to the idea of voting for a different party. Remember, McCain only lost by about 7 points (or about 8 million votes).

While that is a significant number of voters, let’s hope that history remembers this election in a realistic view. Yes, 2008 was an historic election for any number of reasons – but not for bringing out more voters to the polls or energizing the electorate.

Is Early Voting a Good Idea?

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Yes…and no. Is early voting a good idea? This is a rare question that can be answered in the both the negative and affirmative. Let’s take a look at both sides of the issue…

Early voting is a great idea since America has not declared Election Day a national holiday. The fact is that there are many people out there who have employment situations that do not support voting during the time allocated on Election Day. There are others (myself included) who are registered to vote in a town that is an hour and a half away from where I live. So guess who gets to make the drive back to his hometown to vote and then make the drive back to his apartment to wait for the results on Election Day… That’s right! 🙂

There are any number of reasons why early election is a good idea. What about the truck driver who lives in Nebraska, but happens to be on an assignment to Maine? That person isn’t voting on Election Day no matter what they do! Sure, they could apply for an absentee ballot, but that’s about as inefficient as you can get (plus, most of the time the absentee ballots aren’t counted for days or weeks after the election).

At the same time, early voting is a horrible idea if you really aren’t firmly behind a candidate. In other words, if you go to the polls on the Saturday before the election just because it fits your schedule, can you be sure that you made the right decision? What if one of the candidates comes out with some ridiculously outlandish statements in the last 48 hours of the campaign? What if one of their major policy positions is diced up and mutilated by their fellow party members (think Obama’s tax plan in the mouths of Joe Biden and Bill Richardson)? In the year 2000, FOX News broke a story about then-Governor George W. Bush and his drunk driving revelations. Many people think that this negative story on Bush in the last few days of the election cost him the popular vote. Who knows?

Then again if you’re voraciously in favor of one candidate over another, then early voting is probably a good option for you. In the end, though, let’s remember that diversifying our voting methods is a good thing for America!