A state judge ruled on Friday that 1,900 mail ballots in a New Jersey county with prematurely opened envelopes should be accepted and counted.
Superior Court Judge Michael J. Blee ruled from the bench on a matter involving 1,909 mail ballots in Atlantic County, southern New Jersey. The injunction could decide the fate of the Democratic primary in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, where businessman Joe Salerno now leads attorney Tim Alexander by 400 votes, according to unofficial figures.
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Blee asserted that the counting of the ballots is necessary to interpret state laws in a way that maximizes public participation.
“The state of New Jersey has established a liberal interpretation of election laws,” he said.
However, the judge had harsh words for how the conditions developed, which remained unclear even after two board of election officials spoke on Friday.
“Admittedly, what happened in this election was sloppy,” Blee stated. “It was an unintended error. It was an awful mistake.”
The dispute centered on California law, which allows county election officials to open mail votes five days before election day.
The court’s case involved slicing open the inside envelopes containing ballots much earlier than the legally allowed five-day interval, though the precise amount remained unclear. Blee asserted that the law remains “silent” regarding the appropriate course of action in this situation, referencing case law that suggests judges should prioritize facilitating voter participation.
On Friday, two election officials testified before the court, asserting that there was no removal or tampering with the ballots at the time. The early unsealing of the ballots remained unclear. Both Democratic and Republican officials are present during the ballot processing, according to the officials.
Republican officials suggested that the opening was intentional to speed up the ballot counting, while Democratic officials initially described the incident as a mistake.
The court heard Friday that at some point, as the ballot envelopes were being sliced open prematurely, administrators worked out how to switch off the slicer, allowing the envelopes to be time-stamped but not opened.
One of the authorities described the process of opening ballot envelopes as “a little bit chaotic,” with too many staff sorting votes in his opinion.
However, the two Atlantic County election officials told the court that the errors only affected the inside envelopes that a processing machine had cut open, not the ballots themselves.
The county board of elections split evenly 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans, bringing the case to court. Democrats wanted to accept the ballots, but Republicans wanted to reject them, according to the judge.
The fight over less than 2,000 ballots demonstrates how attentively both parties are watching the voting this year, as well as how closely local election offices are scrutinized.
