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Breaking News: Voting Reforms in NJ

We are grateful for the leadership of Governor Murphy and Speaker Coughlin for the voting reforms recently passed and signed into law. While we did not get everything we wanted and in the time frame that we needed, these improvements are going to move our state forward as a leader in voting rights, voting access, and will give us progress within our election infrastructure. More investments will be needed. We are also grateful and indebted to the many legislators who worked with us, county election officials, voters, and other stakeholders in our democracy to legislate some needed reforms.

As a leader in New Jersey on the education and expansion of Vote By Mail (VBM), we would like to give you some highlights in the bills.

1. The biggest bottleneck for our election officials when it comes to VBM—and a big barrier for voters—is having to use and to process the paper form. Starting Jan 1, 2026, qualified registered voters will be able to apply for VBM using the current online voter registration website (OVR). We still need improvements here in order to be a leader in voting rights and make New Jersey an “Auto-VBM” state, like Colorado as an example. As we have seen in 2020, when voters did not have to apply for VBM and got mail-in ballots mailed to them automatically, 92.3% of all votes were cast using VBM.

2. No change was made to when mail-in ballots must commence mailing to VBM voters. We agree with this and by allowing voters 45 days to vote using their paper ballot, New Jersey remains number one in the nation for the most days of early voting using paper ballots.

3. A. The county board of elections may start canvassing mail-in ballots 5 days prior to election day. Currently, boards of elections may only process VBM ballots up to the point of opening the inner envelopes, which must remain sealed.

3. B. Once opened, the county clerk may count the “number of ballots that have been received, have been counted, and are remaining to be counted.” It’s important to note that it prohibits the tallying or tabulation of votes prior to the opening of Election Day—same practice as is currently. There are provisions to ensure integrity and security, and makes it a crime of the third degree for any violations.

Read the rest here

You can read more highlights here.

We did not present and highlight all the bills. However, here is the list of all the bills in this election reform package. You can find and read each bill on this website: https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/

A3822/S2865

A3817/S2863

A1969/S138

A3820/S2869

A3929/S2899

A3819/S2868

A3823/S2867

What reforms will we work on?

There are still reforms that are needed and we look forward to working with the members of the NJ Legislature to get these passed for New Jersey voters. We need:

1. “Drive and Drop” ballot boxes—making voting accessible to all and similar to the convenience of drive-thru banking, this bill will allow voters to drive and drop their VBM ballots without having to park the car and walk to a ballot box. Constituents that will help include voters with disabilities, parents with young children in carseats and strollers, and voters of all ages with mobility issues.

2. “Gag Rule Repeal”—will finally remove the gag that prevents nonpartisan student organizations at public universities from organizing and supporting/protesting against legislation without the fear of losing funds that they raise.

3. Improvements to “My Voter Record” and Track My Ballot user portals by providing counties with cameras that can scan and upload in real-time (or same day) to the Track My Ballot user portal when ballots are received. We also need to make improvements to My Voter Record to allow voters to verify and confirm their address online, something that is inexplicably not shown.

And how did you help?

If you are a member of the Circle of Democracy, you funded our effort. You really did. As a tiny nonprofit advocating for election reform year in and year out, this could not have been possible without the supporters. Thank you so much.

In democracy,

Winn Khuong

Executive Director

Do or Donate. Democracy requires all of us.