More Than 725,000 Votes Cast In Advance Of Election Day

By Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor

November 7, 2022

Election Day is tomorrow, and just over 725,000 New Jerseyans have already voted, state officials announced Monday.

Most residents who’ve already cast their ballots did so by mail. As of Monday, county election officials around the state had received 511,676 completed mail-in ballots out of 973,240 sent to voters. That number will continue to rise through Election Day and for six days thereafter.

The number of voters casting ballots by mail could eclipse last year’s vote-by-mail turnout of 594,840. It’s already pulled ahead of mail turnout for the 2018 midterm elections, when 400,136 New Jerseyans voted using mail-in ballots.

There’s been little change in early in-person turnout compared to last year. During the state’s nine-day voting period, 213,919 voters cast their ballots at early-voting polling places, compared to 207,863 last year.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill allowing early in-person voting in New Jersey in March 2021, and this year’s general election is only the second to see its use. Proponents of early in-person voting say it will take time to become more popular with voters.

Election officials will tally mail-in ballots they receive by Nov. 14 so long as they were sent by mail and postmarked by Election Day, though it’s typical for these late-arriving ballots to be relatively few in number.

Voters can also take their mail-in ballots to a secure ballot drop box or their county’s elections board until 8 p.m. tomorrow.

Polling places will open their doors at 6 a.m. Tuesday and close at 8 p.m.

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