Politics & Government
Malfunctioning Voting Machines Delay Primary Results
Hillsborough write-in Ciattarelli earns spot on the November ballot.
Somerset County’s primary election polls may have closed Tuesday night at 8 p.m., but the results were not posted online until Wednesday morning.
With several county districts experiencing malfunctioning machines and a few close races (including a nine-vote difference in a Branchburg race), County Clerk Brett Radi explained, “I didn’t post them because we still had some ballots that needed to be added. I didn’t want to have results that didn’t reflect what was really going on.”
“We just didn’t do a final update, because we didn’t have the ‘emergencies’ [emergency ballots used when machines malfunction],” he noted.
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A total of six districts in Branchburg, Bridgewater, Bernardsville and Warren reported malfunctioning machines. Bridgewater Township Clerk Linda Doyle confirmed that one machine in District 16 was not operating correcting and was replaced by the Somerset County Board of Elections. Until the new machine arrived, emergency ballots were utilized.
The emergency ballots had to be counted manually and added to the machines’ totals.
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Freeholder Jack Ciattarelli (R-Hillsborough) has earned a spot on the November ballot as Peter Biondi’s running mate in the race for two seats in state Assembly District 16. He will be seeking to fill the position that had been held by Denise Coyle, of Bernards; Coyle was unable to seek re-election after the state districts were realigned and Bernards was shifted to District 21, making Coyle ineligible to continue to represent District 16.
Since it was too late for Ciattarelli to file a petition to run, his name was placed in contention by write-ins. Radi verified 970 “legitimate, fully fledged write-in” votes for Ciattarelli. Combined with the numbers from municipalities in the other counties that are now part of District 16, Ciattarelli has received ample numbers to qualify for the November ballot.
According to Radi, the next step for a successful write-in candidate is to formally accept the nomination by filing paperwork with the state within seven days.
