Wrong Ballots Sent To Point Boro Voters By 'Human Error:' Clerk

POINT PLEASANT BORO — Local voters are being urged to take a close look at their mail-in ballots as soon as they arrive after more than 70 Point Pleasant Boro voters received ballots for the wrong town.

Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella, whose office is in charge of mailing the ballots, confirmed that some voters in Point Pleasant Boro received ballots that had the Long Beach Township local races on them.

"As best we can ascertain, a very few voters out of the 14,605 active registered voters in Point Pleasant Boro incorrectly received a Vote by Mail Ballot for Long Beach Township rather than for Point Pleasant," Colabella said by email. He said the mistake was simply innocent human error.

"We take very seriously the importance of accuracy in administering the election process and regret any innocent human error that may occur in processing a record volume of over 424,000 Vote by Mail Ballots to voters," Colabella said.

Vote-by-mail ballots are being sent to active voters throughout New Jersey under an order by Gov. Phil Murphy in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Colabella said ballots have been mailed to active voters in most 26 of the 33 municipalities in Ocean County, primarily the smallest towns. As of Thursday, the clerk's office still had to mail ballots active voters in Berkeley, Brick, Jackson, Lakewood, Manchester, South Toms River and Toms River. Colabella, who said his office's five employees have been supplemented with other county staff, have been working seven days a week to get all of the ballots stuffed — which includes the ballot, a postage-paid envelope to return the ballot, and the outer envelope — and mailed.

Colabella said the error appears to be limited to Point Pleasant Boro voters, and correct ballots have been issued to those who have contacted the clerk's office.

The error, however, has only fueled the controversy over mail-in voting that has boiled for weeks on social media.

A Patch reader who posted about the issue said the voters she had heard from several friends who are registered Democrats about the error.

"What if it's too late to correct when the voter realizes the issue? What if they don't notice at all because they don't follow local politics and don't recognize the other people on the ballot as being from another town?" she wrote in an email. "Could it be considered voter suppression to not even have your congresssional race on your ballot, or board of ed, or mayor and council?"

Colabella said voters should check their ballots immediately and call the county clerk's office at 732-929-2018 for assistance. Voters who don't look at their ballot until Election Day will be able to get a correct ballot in person at the Ocean County Clerk's Office.

Reports about the incorrectly stuffed ballots sparked anecdotes on social media of voters receiving ballots despite no longer living in Ocean County or no longer living at an address.

One woman from Tuckerton said her daughter received a ballot but had not lived there in two years. Another person wrote they had received a ballot for the previous owner of their home — and that person had sold the home and moved several years ago.

Colabella deferred questions on how active voters were determined for the mailings, and how often voter rolls are updated to the Ocean County Board of Elections.

With reporting by Karen Wall