Friday, June 11, 2021

Atlantic County Offers Use of Four Facilities for General Election Early Voting

In response to a request from the Atlantic County Board of Elections, Atlantic County has identified four county-owned facilities that could serve as early voting locations for the November 2, 2021 general election.

As required by the New Jersey early voting bill, signed by Governor Murphy in March 2021, counties must hold nine days of early, in-person machine voting ending the Sunday before Election Day. This year that time period will be Saturday, October 23 through Sunday, October 31.

Each county is required to have voting machines with voter-verifiable paper ballots for auditing purposes and to purchase electronic poll books to allow poll workers to access voter registrations in real time and prevent people from voting more than once. The New Jersey Association of Counties estimates these costs at $82 million. The state has currently only budgeted $20 million for early-voting expenses for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Atlantic County has found a county-owned facility in all but one of the five voting districts that meets the state criteria of having a minimum of 1,500 square feet, being ADA accessible and located near public transportation. These include:  the Shoreview building in Northfield (District 2), the Mays Landing Library (District 3), the Galloway Library (District 4) and 310 Bellevue Avenue, Hammonton (District 5). No county-owned facility in District 1 meets the required criteria.

The county would not charge for the use of these facilities, providing a significant savings to taxpayers.

County News