FREEHOLD, N.J. – Board of Elections staffers and volunteers in seven New Jersey counties found themselves in unusual company on Thursday working alongside members of the state’s National Guard.
On Wednesday, the Guard announced that it was deploying soldiers to seven New Jersey counties – Atlantic, Cumberland, Essex, Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex and Monmouth – to help count primary election ballots.
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“The New Jersey National Guard serves as our state’s military first response,” Brig. Gen. Jemal J. Beale said. “This response can come in many different forms, but the bottom line is that our Airmen and Soldiers step up when the community needs us.”
It’s the first time in New Jersey history that soldiers – inexperienced in election processes – have been used to assist counting ballots. National Guardsmen weren’t even used for this purpose in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
New Jersey’s July 7th election had been delayed one month by COVID-19 and converted to a mostly vote-by-mail election. As a result, ballots only needed to be postmarked no later than Election Day. The result is a late massive influx of ballots in some counties; for example, Bergen County reportedly received 58 crates of ballots – totaling approximately 20,000 ballots – on Thursday alone.
New York State is still counting ballots from its own June primary.