Superior Court Judge Carol Novey Catuogno has rejected 360 mail-in ballots cast in Bergen County because they didn’t include a privacy envelope, paving the way for election officials and others to contact the affected voters today and give them a chance to cast an in-person provisional ballot before the polls close at 8 PM this evening.
The six commissioners on the Bergen County Board of Elections deadlocked 3-3 along party lines on a motion to reject the ballots; Democrats supported giving the voters a chance to correct the mistake.
These are commonly known as Naked Ballots: voters place the ballot in the outer envelope, which has a pre-printed address of the Board of Elections, rather than putting it in an inner secrecy envelope.
Democrats have requested a court order to permit voters who don’t return to the polls to cure their ballots during a brief period after the election. Novey Catuogno has set a hearing for Thursday morning to consider that.
“It is clear to me that everyone who is participating in this process agrees that ours is a society that facilitates and encourages our citizenry to exercise the right to vote, rather than to create impediments to their doing so,” stated Novey Catuogno, the Bergen County assignment judge.
The New Jersey Globe first reported the Naked Ballot issue on Sunday.
