On Monday afternoon, the campaign of Jack Ciattarelli released only its third official statement since Election Day as the deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive at county boards of election rapidly approached.
Veteran NJGOP Attorney Mark Sheridan – who is currently serving as legal counsel to the Ciattarelli campaign – suggested a recount decision would be made when provisional ballots are tabulated. The campaign specifically cited “technology errors” which “resulted in voters being forced to cast approximately 70,000 provisional ballots which have yet to be counted.”
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“Waiting an additional day or two for all votes to be counted should not be controversial,” said Sheridan. “Let me be clear, no one on this team is alleging fraud or malfeasance, as we have not seen any credible evidence of that. However, the new law Governor Murphy and state Democrats rushed to enact led to this disjointed and excruciatingly slow vote counting process. We still have vote-by-mail ballots outstanding and approximately 70,000 provisional ballots to be counted. At this time, we do not expect the provisional vote count to end with Jack Ciattarelli in the lead. However, that count may reduce the margin for Governor Murphy enough to warrant a full recount. We will make the decision to pursue a recount based on all of the facts, which includes that this is the first time New Jersey is conducting an election under the new law, using new technology and vote counting procedures.”
Phil Murphy led by 66,405 (unofficially) as of Monday monring; Jack Ciattarelli (1,219,906) and Murphy (1,285,351) were separated by 2.6-points statewide.
It’s still unknown how many mail-in ballots and emergency ballots are outstanding.
The theory: if provisionals break heavily for Ciattarelli, then the candidates could theoretically be separated by relatively tiny margin. The odds of a recount changing the final result are still probably well under 50%; the Florida 2000 recount reduced George W. Bush’s Sunshine State margin of victory from 1,784 votes to 537.
Clearly, the final decision whether to pursue a recount would hinge on how much, if at all, the Murphy margin contracts between now and the end of counting.
“We understand that Governor Murphy and his team are embarrassed that in a state with 1 million more registered Democrats and where Joe Biden won by 16 points, they are leading by such a small margin,” said Ciattarelli strategist Chris Russell. “But the Murphy campaign’s attempt to spin their lackluster performance will have no impact on our decision.”
There’s no automatic recall provision in New Jersey; any candidate can request one within a certain timeframe if he or she is willing to advance the money but the requesting party could be reimbursed depending upon what the recount reveals.
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