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Some votes were counted twice in 4 NJ towns — and one race's result may change
By
Louis C. Hochman
and
Nancy Solomon
Published Jan 19, 2023
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By
Louis C. Hochman
and
Nancy Solomon
Published Jan 19, 2023
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A problem with a tabulation system caused votes from November’s election to be double-counted in six Monmouth County, New Jersey districts, spread across four towns — and could change the result of a school board race in Ocean Township.
Election Systems and Software acknowledged the double-counting in a message to Gothamist. The problem was first reported by the New Jersey Globe political news blog run by David Wildstein, a longtime Republican politician and confessed mastermind of the Bridgegate scandal during Gov. Chris Christie's administration.
The company, which also goes by the abbreviation ES&S, described the issue as an isolated incident “due to a human procedural error.” It said the problem was discovered during a review of its election database prompted by a request from Monmouth County, and limited to races there. It also said the error only affected the outcome of a single race.
“The integrity of elections are ultimately protected by a series of checks and balances, and we’re grateful for the review that revealed this human error,” spokesperson Katina Granger wrote.
ES&S didn’t say what prompted the county’s request. The Monmouth County Board of Elections office directed messages to spokesperson Karla Bardinas, who hasn't yet returned a call placed Wednesday. But the Globe, in a separate report, said former Belmar Councilman James Bean filed a public records request in November after noticing inconsistencies in election results. It cited Bean saying he reached out to officials for weeks but didn’t hear back from the county’s superintendent of elections until December.
On Nov. 28, board Chief Clerk Tracee Johnson wrote to state officials saying a post-election audit hadn't found any issues aside from stray marks on some ballots and a paper jam that kept one ballot from dropping into a voting machine sleeve.
The issue could reverse Steve Clayton’s 20-vote victory over Jeffrey Weinstein in Ocean Township. The Globe said races in Belmar, Fair Haven and Tinton Falls, where vote tabulations were also affected, weren’t close enough to be reversed.
“It's horrible. It's not just horrible for me, It's horrible for Jeff Weinstein, too. We're both in the same position,” Clayton, who was sworn in this month, told News 12.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Monmouth County's Board of Elections said it would ask a judge to order a recount of the school board race.
Sharon Lauchaire, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office, declined to comment on when the office first became aware of the situation, what guidance it has given Monmouth about addressing the problem, whether it has notified other counties using ES&S' system, and whether it’s satisfied the issue didn’t extend beyond the districts already identified.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, state Sen. Vin Gopal asked both the New Jersey attorney general’s office and the U.S. attorney’s office to investigate the circumstances around the voting tabulation issue.
“Reversing the outcome of a race over two months after the election is completely unacceptable and creates an opening for questions about the integrity of elections in Monmouth County, and the state,” Gopal said.
He said county and state officials owe voters “complete transparency on how these errors occurred and what steps are being taken to ensure they never repeat.” Gopal’s 11th Legislative District includes 18 towns in Monmouth County, including Ocean Township.
ES&S said in its statement that a USB drive was “loaded twice into the results reporting module.” It said under normal circumstances, the company’s software blocks votes from being counted twice, but a technician missed a step when reinstalling software in July to address an issue with slow performance, and that function wasn’t working.
Tagged
new jersey
Politics
Louis C. Hochman
After about two decades in (mostly) New Jersey-focused commercial print, digital and digital-but-radio-adjacent news, Lou stumbled into member-supported news in early 2021, as the editor and CEO of Montclair Local. There, he (hopes he) expanded enterprise, brought more sophistication to digital storytelling and moved the nonprofit newsroom closer to long-term financial sustainability. He helped lead the Local to its fourth consecutive General Excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association — the NJPA's highest honor with judges noting the paper's work to strip away layers of government opacity, to hold power to account, to make news accessible for more members of the community, to share the stories and concerns of more facets of the community and to tell compelling stories across multiple media. He's excited to continue the same ethic — news as a public service — at NYPR as the New Jersey and suburbs editor, drawing on the extraordinary talents of reporters including Karen Yi and Nancy Solomon. Lou lives in Philly (that commute!) with his partner and their two cats, about whom and about which he speaks incessantly.
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Nancy Solomon
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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