This is making some people worried about voter fraud as an important midterm election approaches.
County
officials said the adoption of the law in August gave them hardly any
time to notify voters before the deadlines. Voters in Essex County, for
example, received their letters three days before the deadline to opt
out
Jean Chesney died in April 2014. She was laid to rest at the Hollywood Cemetery in Union Township.
But
two weeks ago her family in Irvington got a letter from the Essex
County Clerk's Office saying that she would be receiving a vote-by-mail
ballot.
She wasn't the only one.
In Brick, Marilyn Morris opened a vote-by-mail
letter from the Ocean County Clerk's Office addressed to her husband. He
got one last year, too. He passed away in 2016.
Former
Gov. Brendan Byrne once joked that he would have liked to be buried in
Hudson County so that he could remain active in politics. But some
people in New Jersey worry that the "dead" could be voting across the
state.
"Somebody could take this and vote with
it. And you don’t know how many more are going out," Morris said this
week. "It's kind of scary."
As the November
midterm election approaches, with Democrats trying to wrest control of
Congress, county clerks and election boards in New Jersey have been
scrambling to update their voter rolls.
It's a job that was made harder last month when
Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law requiring that all voters who voted by
mail in the 2016 presidential election be automatically provided a
mail-in ballot this year unless they opt out. The law was part of a push
by Democrats to expand voting, including by automatically registering people to vote at Motor Vehicle Commission, welfare and parole offices.
Election
officials rushed to get out letters notifying these voters that they
were on the list to receive mail-in ballots, and warning them that if
they did not opt out they would not be able to vote on a machine if they
show up in person at the polls on Election Day.
Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin said that
the rush to inform more than 16,000 mail-in voters is one reason why
Joanne Gonzalez's dead mother received a letter. In 2013, her mother
applied to receive mail-in ballots every general election. After she
died in 2014, her name was removed from the voter rolls. But because the
clerk's office used a mailing list that included Chesney based on her
2013 application, she got a letter, Durkin said.
Durkin
said Chesney also got a letter in 2016, but never got a ballot for
that. And she wouldn't be getting a ballot this year, anyway.
"This
is just an unfortunate situation and circumstance. But she never got a
ballot after the 2014 election," he said. "She was deleted."
Durkin said dead names are constantly removed from
the voter rolls. Election officials get daily updates of deaths from
the Social Security Administration and of address changes through the
Motor Vehicle Commission.
In Ocean County, it
was not immediately clear why Morris's husband received a letter even
though she had previously informed the county of his death.
Ocean
County Election Assistant Supervisor Marie Peterson said that unless
the board is notified of a death by another government agency, the board
would need the family of the deceased to provide a copy of a death
certificate — "not just word of mouth" — before removing that voter.
Gonzalez said it's "bizarre" that her mother should still receive election mail even though she's no longer a voter.
"If she’s dead she should be off the list. Anybody
that’s dead that gets this in the mail now, there’s voter fraud because
everybody is not honest. You could sign for whoever you want," she
said.
"It made me so angry. If I received one how many other people in New Jersey received that?"
The idea that election results are being swayed by
massive voter fraud has been an idea promulgated by President Donald
Trump. But there's little evidence to back it.
In 2016, the Asbury Park Press found 2,460 dead people
who were still registered to vote in New Jersey, and a few of them had
voted 58 times between 2005 and 2015. The report, however, pointed out
that many of those votes were likely honest mistakes — such as a child
getting mixed up with a parent of the same name, or a voter signing the
wrong line in the election book at the polls.
"I
don’t really see that there is a systemic problem at all with voter
fraud," said Durkin, explaining that a voter intending to vote
fraudulently would have to forge a signature. All voter signatures are
kept on file for comparison.
But election meddling is not unheard of in New Jersey.
Last week, the U.S. Attorney's office charged Lizaida Camis,
55, of Hoboken, with offering voters $50 in order to apply for and cast
mail-in ballots in the November 2013 Hoboken municipal election.
State Sen. Sam Thompson, R-Middlesex, said he wants to increase criminal penalties for "extreme cases of voter fraud."
“Voter
fraud is real, it is happening in New Jersey, and we have a duty to do
everything in our power to protect the integrity of our electoral
process," Thompson said this week.
His proposed legislation would create a
second-degree offense of aggravated voter fraud for a person accused of
offering bribes or other illegal influence for votes. Second-degree
crimes carry sentences of five to 10 years in prison and a $150,000
fine.
“Mail-in ballots have always been
easy-pickings for people who commit voter fraud, and the recent changes
to election law have only made it worse," Thompson said. "Voters are
more vulnerable now than ever before. Anyone who thinks that the Hudson
County case is an anomaly is kidding themselves."
Letter sent to a dead person
Murphy's law was part of a push
by Democrats to expand voting, including by automatically registering people to vote at Motor Vehicle Commission, welfare and parole offices. Now dead people will get absentee ballots. If you oppose these actions, make sure you show up at the polls on November 6th and cast a real vote.
1 comment:
Vote Republican everyone. Let's try to save NJ. Let's stop the leftist's circus going on in the Federal Gov.. Look at the mess they caused with Kavanaugh. The demonrats have overplayed their hand in this. All of this #metoo bullshit isn't bringing women out like they planned.
Judging by what I've seen on social media and heard from my own friends.... wives, mothers, Grandmothers, sisters and aunts are all saying..."If they can do this to this man, then what's in store for my husband, son, grandson, brother or nephew when some woman/girl decides to make the same accusation against one of them, especially 36 yrs. later with no evidence at all?"
The mama bears of the world are pissed and they won't stand by and let this shit happen.
Those loose floozies and their demonrat pushers are going down.
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