Provisional Ballot Distribution Errors

A judge ordered the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office, Superintendant of Elections Office and Board of Elections Thursday to keep all documents and evidence relating to the distribution and collection of provisional ballots from Tuesday’s General Election.

Provisional ballots were not available at polling places across the county early Tuesday because of a packaging error by the county Clerk’s Office. Provisional ballots are used under certain circumstances, like when a poll book says a voter applied for a mail-in-ballot but the voter wants to vote in person.

That documentation includes blank or unused provisional ballots, logs of voters who tried voting but were turned away due to a lack of provisional ballots, as well as any other information related to what happened regarding the provisional ballots.

Those materials must be provided to the court, Attorney General’s Office, county counsel and attorneys representing the Democratic and Republican parties.

Judge Mark H. Sandson also ordered all parties to be prepared to discuss an investigation on the matter, not for a “gotcha,” but for “a concept of how this will never happen again,” Sandson said Wednesday. Sandson recommended the Board of Elections, Superintendant of Elections Office and County Clerk’s Office co-operate with the investigation.

The next hearing is Nov. 13 at 9 a.m. at the Atlantic County Criminal Court House in Mays Landing.

The county Clerk’s Office is supposed to place provisional ballot packets in sealed orange bags and distribute them to the municipal clerks. There were no ballots inside the sealed bags, which include a chain of custody sheet that has the signatures of everyone who has touched the bag.

Instead, the provisional ballots were put in manila folders, according to a Tuesday testimony from Deputy County Clerk Michael Sommers, who said then that he assumed the municipal clerks would distribute the ballots in the folder.

Normally, only street lists and sample ballots are in the manila folders, the Atlantic County Municipal Clerks Association said in a statement Wednesday.

“The City Clerks have never been requested to distribute provisional ballots, nor do they have the authority to provide them,” the ACMCA added. “That authority rests solely with the County Clerk.”

New provisional ballots were later delivered to polling places throughout the county.

Contact: 609-272-7215

CHetrick@pressofac.com

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