Burlington County saw unacceptable voting delays on Election Day in November at most of its polling locations across many of its 40 municipalities. Lines stretched out building entrances, into parking lots, onto adjacent fields. A large percentage of voters were forced to wait – some for more than six hours – to cast their votes in the hotly contested presidential year.
In the end, only 62% of registered voters in the county cast ballots, below the statewide average of 65% and well below the 2016 general election turnout of 72%, according to the county.
The county board of commissioners retained Connell Foley LLP as independent special counsel on Jan. 30 to review and analyze the ’24 election process and make recommendations. John P. Lacey and Alexander J. Gacos, of Roseland-based Connell Foley LLP, submitted a 50-page interim report on April 9 with practical recommendations ahead of the 2025 primary voting process in June that “we believe will substantially mitigate, if not eliminate, many of the problems that occurred on Election Day in November 2024.”
The county released a press release and provided a copy of the report for the public to view on the same day.
“Connell Foley has done exactly what we asked,” noted Commissioner Director Felicia Hopson. “The independent special counsel’s interim report outlines preliminary factual findings and assessments about what caused the unacceptable long lines and delays on Election Day, and it makes recommendations about what actions our county should take to prevent the problems from occurring again.
“It does not place blame on any one office or official,” she added. “There were failures all around and the report makes that clear. Our county must now work together to quickly implement the recommendations … Whatever assistance and support is required, we will provide it.”
In support of the interim report and recommendations, the firm has already conducted 32 comprehensive interviews at county election offices and in other areas, including election officials from other counties and members of a citizen-led watchdog group.
“Most of these individuals had direct relevant knowledge of Burlington County’s 2024 election process,” Lacey and Gacos explained in their report. “We have also pored over thousands of documents relevant to the election process, including, among other things, data on voter participation, voting machine deployment, and check-in times by polling place, as well as materials from municipal officials and voluminous complaints from voters.
“We also visited the Burlington County election building in person to inspect the voting machines and to fully understand their start to-finish preparation, setup and breakdown.”
Some of the main problems to date:
- A lack of communication, coordination, and collaborations among Burlington County’s election offices.
- The late rollout of new voting machines without an earlier pilot program and in a presidential year.
- Election districts overdue for redistricting.
- A lack of hands-on or, in some cases, any poll worker training with the new voting machines.
- Inadequate selection and training of “advanced poll workers.”
- Voters’ and poll workers’ aversion to new, unfamiliar technology.
- Opening of only seven of 10 authorized polling locations for early voting.
- Issues with the number of voting machines deployed to each polling place and the voting process.
- Inconvenient, inaccessible, and cramped polling places.
- Layouts of polling locations in ways that clogged voter flow.
- Delays in resolving technological issues at the polling places.
Recommendations are:
- The board of elections should invest more resources in recruiting a diverse group of reliable poll workers who feel comfortable dealing with new, unfamiliar technology.
- The board should revamp its training of poll workers, with a focus on more frequent hands-on training with the voting carts, ePollbooks, BMDs (Ballot Marking Devices) and tabulators closer to the election.
- The board should reexamine its process for selecting, training, empowering and compensating advanced poll workers.
- County election offices should expand efforts to publicize educational resources about the voting process both before elections and outside polling locations.
- The Superintendent of Elections should reassess the calculation of the number of voting machines needed at each polling place.
- The board of elections, in collaboration with the other election offices, should readjust as soon as possible the boundary lines of any election district in which voters cast “more than 750 or less than 250 votes” in “any two consecutive general elections,” apportioning at most 750 registered voters to each district, according to state statute.
- The board needs to revamp its approach to the selection of polling places that provide the convenience, accessibility and privacy required under the law.
- The board should work with municipalities to set up the polling locations, not later than the day before the election, in ways that maximize flow in and out of the locations.
- The Superintendent of Elections must take steps to minimize the time spent on responding to and resolving technological issues at polling places.
- The board of elections – in collaboration with the superintendent – should alleviate turnout by maximizing early voting. “We recommend that, for early voting, the board open 10 polling locations in areas that, considering geographic landscape and population distribution, will maximize voter participation,” the report states.
- The county clerk’s office should evaluate the number of emergency ballots provided to municipalities on election days.
- Leadership from each of the county’s election offices should work in the same room on primary and general election days.
- County election offices should embrace municipal clerks’ roles as local election officials.
- Those offices must increase communication, coordination, and collaboration with one another at all steps of the election process.
Actions already taken:
- The commissioners last month authorized purchase of additional voting machines and other election equipment, including more ballot marking devices, tabulators and machine storage shells. The additional equipment is expected to ensure each polling location has at least one ballot marking device for every 750 eligible voters.
- The county election board, Superintendent of Elections and county clerk’s office have begun the process to redraw the boundaries of the election districts in five towns to ensure none have more than the recommended standard of 750 voters. Voters affected in these towns will be notified of the changes before the June 10 primary.
- In addition, the county also expects to increase the number of IT (Information Technology) “rovers” who will be available to quickly respond to polling locations on Election Day to help troubleshoot technological issues.
