In a New Jersey primary you must declare you affiliation in order to vote for your party of choice. As noted in yesterday’s blog, I was in the first group of 18-year-olds allowed to vote in this country. I have never declared as a republican, despite what the board of elections paperwork says. After voting with a provisional ballot again, I spent the day trying to find out how both Cape May County and Atlantic County had me down as a republican. I moved from Ocean City to Somers Point in 2005, which is how this whole mess started. Thanks to the extremely helpful people at the Board of Elections for both Atlantic and Cape May counties, my elective paper trail was unearthed. Marge in Atlantic County told me I must have declared as a republican during the 2005 primary while still in Ocean City. Joy Erb and Debra Dunhour in Cape May say that according to their records I was an independent who declared myself a republican to vote in the 2005 primary. That’s funny, because I voted for Jon Corzine in the democratic primary.
I moved to Somers Point in Oct. 2005, but didn’t bother to switch over my voter registration to Atlantic County until August of 2006. The ladies were patient and helpful, but they kept telling me I voted republican and I kept telling them I did not. Marge explained that I would have to go to court today, to tell a judge a mistake had been made, in the hopes of having my provisional vote counted; she was gathering the paperwork for me to use.
However, court became unnecessary as of 3pm. Donna Kelly from the Attorney’s General’s office in Trenton announced that because of all the complaints about incorrect party affiliations, all the provisional ballots would be counted for today’s primaries. Hip, hip hurray.
While everyone I talked to from the election boards assured me that it is nearly impossible for mistakes to be made, my gut tells me that because of the unprecedented interest in this primary, an awful lot of people found out today that mistakes have been made and have been festering there unnoticed after years of light primary election turnout. The election board might have well trained paid employees, but volunteers staff polling places. A volunteer in Ocean City in 2005 either made a mistake in writing down my affiliation, or wrote it down as republican on purpose and didn’t tell me.
All’s well that ends well but I could have done without the physical and emotional indigestion.