Covid-19: Why Did Thousands Of Sussex County Ballots Go Uncounted For Months?

Thousands of uncounted ballots from Sussex County's primary election in July were recently discovered -- and did not change the outcome of the July election in any race, according to a recent report.

Sussex County Clerk's Office on Spring Street in Newton
Photo Credit: *Google Maps (Street View)*

Valerie Musson

09/15/2020 1:58 p.m.

Board of Elections Administrator Marge McCabe told the NJHerald that the nearly 1,666 ballots had been placed in a bin that had been mislabeled and secured in the board office area.

The excess votes were have been counted and certified by the county clerk’s office, McCabe said.

The newly counted votes “did not change the outcome of any Sussex County primary election in any race for any office, Republican or Democrat,” the Board of Elections said.

Possible reasons for the error range from the vote-by-mail election process amid the COVD-19 pandemic, or the temporary relocation of the Board of Elections, the report says.

More than 28,000 mail-in ballots and 2,100 provisional ballots had been received as of two weeks after the July 7 primary, the Herald reports.

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