Busy Election Week Coming Up
- Kin Gee
- Jun 12, 2020
- 3 min read
Editorial note – Please share and cross-post this to family, friends and neighbors. If you wish to receive this as an email directly, please send an email to betterholmdel@yahoo.com.
Next week promises to be a busy week, election wise.
CILU Candidate Forum
On Monday, 7:30 PM, CILU (Citizens for Informed Land Use) will be conducting their virtual Candidates Forum. Just like last year, Holmdel’s Republican primary is a contested one. Incumbent Mayor Greg Buontempo and his running mate Ronald E. Emma are being challenged by BOE President Vicky Flynn and her running mate DJ Luccarelli. CILU has not yet provided a Zoom link, but you can register by clicking on the link below:
Virtual Event – “Women Shaping the Future”
On Tuesday 6:30 PM, there is a virtual event on “Women Reshaping the Future – Coming Together in Unity to Heal the Whole”. The event is hosted by Monmouth County Women in Unity Coalition and co-sponsored by Holmdel First, a nonpartisan civic engagement grassroots group,. Among the notable panelists are Judie Saunders, an attorney that is a local Holmdel resident, and Jessie Burns, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of NJ (“LWVNJ”).
Zoom meeting ID: 84051479277
Password: 711810
Burns will be speaking on "The Importance of Voting in Primary Election and the Recent Changes". In case you missed it, LWVNJ is among several plaintiffs that have filed a lawsuit for New Jersey to revise current signature verification procedures. Why is this important? Analysis by NJ Spotlight shows that in the recent May 12th elections, 10% of the vote-by-mail ballots were rejected and were not counted. One of the biggest reasons that those ballots were not counted was due to “signatures don’t match” and, for now, there is no recourse by individual voters. See article below:
Vote-By-Mail Ballots for Primary Election
Pursuant to an executive order by Governor Phil Murphy, this year’s primary has been pushed back to July 7th and will be conducted using vote-by-mail ballots. All registered Democrats and Republicans will automatically receive a vote-by-mail ballot.
The ballots are expected to be mailed this weekend or early next week. So, be on the lookout for it.
All unaffiliated voters (aka Independents) will receive an application for a vote-by-mail ballot. Unaffiliated can vote in the primary by filling out the application and the, after receiving the ballot in the mail, fill out and submit the vote-by-mail ballot. You will then be registered with whichever party you voted in until you change party affiliation (including to be unaffiliated). This has no impact on voting in the November general election.
In 2019, the Holmdel Republican primary was decided by 4 votes! To ensure that your ballot is counted, please take care to follow instructions and to sign your name in the certification as close to the signature that appeared on your voter registration form or the application to receive a vote-by-mail ballot.
In case of doubt, you can always fill out a new "Voter Registration Application" form prior to mailing your ballot. Just check the box "Signature Update" in Box #1. You can download a copy of the New Jersey Voter Registration Application from our website under the page "Useful Information" (or click here)
In addition, the vote-by-mail ballot must be postmarked no later than July 7th and must be received by the Board of Election no later than July 14th. In last year’s general election, for some reason, there were many ballots that were rejected because the postmark was after Election Day even though the ballots were mailed on Election Day. We urge voters to mail their completed ballot as early as possible.
The process to vote by mail is relatively straight forward, but you do need to follow the instruction for your ballot to be counted.
Holmdel First has prepared a short instructional video on how to vote by mail. See the link below:
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