Election Day Chaos In BurlCo Spurred By Tense, Partisan Work Culture: Report

BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ — Partisan division and high tensions among Burlington County's election offices significantly contributed to the hours-long wait times at polling places, according to investigative findings.

Earlier this year, the Burlington County commissioners retained a law firm to review the issues at the county's polling places in last November's election. Connell Foley LLP, the law firm acting as independent counsel, released its final investigative report on the matter last week.

It was the first General Election in which the county rolled out its new fleet of voting machines, which mark ballots electronically. The machines were subject to glitches throughout the day. Some residents had to wait at least six hours to cast their votes, according to the report.

Although the new machines caught flack, better planning and communication among election officials could have prevented many of those delays, the report says.

The law firm advised county election officials of their preliminary findings, including recommended solutions, in March. The final report says there's been progress since then.

Related articles:

• April 10: Election Day Disarray: Toxic Work Culture Played Into BurlCo Voting Issues, Report Says
• May 15: Burlington Co. Works To Avoid Repeat Of Election Day Mishaps: Here's How

“To their credit, Burlington County’s election officials have implemented or begun to implement several of these recommendations,” Connell Foley's new report says.

Signs Of Issues Ignored

With the older voting machines becoming obsolete and essentially impossible to repair, the county purchased new machines several years ago. Since 2021, the county has deployed them for early voting.

Last year marked the first time that the county used them in a general election. It was also a presidential election cycle, which draws higher voter turnout.

But even during the 2024 primaries, there were signs of issues ahead.

“After seeing lines at the polls during the primary election, which historically rarely had lines, and hearing municipal clerks’ reports of unprepared poll workers, the Board of Elections knew or should have known that significant voting delays would occur on election day if all poll workers were not properly trained and ready to operate the new voting machines in the general election," the report says.

In November's election, the problems became impossible to ignore. Residents waited hours and lines snaked out the door as voters dealt with paper jams, computer lags and other technical issues with the new machines.

A court order forced the polls to stay open later as other New Jersey counties wrapped things up at their polling stations.

IT workers fixed each glitch, and everyone who stayed in line was able to cast a ballot. But many elderly and disabled voters, parents, and residents who had to get to work couldn't afford to wait that long, the report says.

Only 62 percent of the county's registered voters cast ballots, which was below the 65 percent state average and the county's 72 percent turnout in the 2016 General Election, Connell Foley says.

Divided Election Offices

Three main entities administer elections in Burlington County, consistent with state law:

• Burlington County superintendent of elections: the governor-appointed official selects and maintains voting equipment, processes voter registration and maintains voter records. They manage an office of 15 employees.
• County Board of Elections: comprised of four members — two Democrats and two Republicans — who select and maintain polling locations, train poll workers, count vote-by-mail and provisional ballots, and conducts recounts. They are nominated by county party leaders to the governor and appointed to two-year terms. The board also has two full-time, salaried administrators — one Republican and one Democrat — to carry out day-to-day operations.
• County Clerk's Office: oversees tabulating votes cast on Election Day and certifies election results. The county clerk is elected to a five-year term.

Despite the equal representation of major political parties, there was little collaboration across parties in the county's election offices, the report says.

“Interviewees uniformly reported or strongly implied that interoffice, and sometimes intraoffice, constructive criticism is largely met with defensiveness or even personal attacks," the report says. "Election officials no longer meet on a regular basis; some officials reportedly will not work together at all.”

That division trickled down to the poll workers. In the past, the Board of Elections split training responsibilities ahead of election days. Democrats trained Democratic poll workers, and Republicans trained Republican poll workers — a system that stifled collaboration, Connell Foley says.

During last November's Election Day, not all lead election officials were in the "war room" — the central workspaces that election offices set up on election days. The Democratic administrator was on medical leave, and the Republican administrator was on-site but worked elsewhere, the report says.

It left the war room shorthanded as they were flooded with calls from poll workers and voters asking for help.

"The gap between leadership led to disconnects on important, time-sensitive matters such as, perhaps most exemplary, the status of legal efforts to keep the polls open past 8:00 p.m. (the time polls close in New Jersey)," the report says.

The offices have improved since then, the report says. In May, the Board of Elections hired two new deputy administrators — one from each party — who have been open to bipartisan collaboration, the report says.

The war room was also fully staffed during June's primaries.

Connell Foley also recommends appointing a single leader to oversee the board and superintendent, along with a deputy from the opposing party. The partisan division has left it difficult to hold anyone accountable for past issues, the report says.

But additional resources to reorganize will have to come from the Burlington County commissioners — the county's main elected governing body.

"The County may consider other forms of oversight to evaluate whether election offices are effectively using resources to maximize voter participation. But in the current form, the buck stops with nobody below the Burlington County Commissioners."

Other Next Steps

Connell Foley's other suggestions included changing each town's election districts for more-even population distribution at each polling place, greater voter outreach on the new machines, and changes to poll worker training.

Some of the recommendations have been implemented, the report says.

Burlington County's election districts were long overdue for redistricting — drawing boundary lines that map out the polling places for residents of a municipality.

Earlier this year, the Board of Elections redistricted five locales: Chesterfield, Medford, Mount Laurel Shamong and Southampton.

The board retained a law firm to redistrict additional towns by the end of the year. However, the board decline to tell Connell Foley's investigators which towns are under consideration for new districts, on the advice of legal counsel.

"This lack of transparency, coupled with the lack of formal, standard procedure for redistricting election districts, has the capacity to create confusion on the parts of voters, poll workers and election officials. The County can and should adopt some form of system that timely identifies when redistricting is necessary and responds accordingly," the report says.

Meanwhile, election officials have instituted some of the earlier recommendations. For instance, the county is now paying poll workers for training, provided they work on Election Day.

Additionally, the Superintendent of Elections Office deployed more IT professionals to remedy voting-machine glitches during the primaries.

The Burlington County Commissioners praised Connell Foley for the report. But County Commissioner Director Felicia Hopson stressed that additional actions are needed.

"While we were pleased that we did not have the same long lines, delays and waits during the primary that were experienced last November, the report makes clear that more actions are still necessary, including improvements in poll worker recruitment and training, redistricting, voter education and technical support," Hopson said in a statement. "If there are additional costs involved, we are committed to providing the necessary funding for the Elections offices to implement the report’s remaining recommendations."

Here's Connell Foley's final election report.