Confidence in elections is still sorely lacking in certain parts of the nation. Reports of ballot harvesting, unsolicited ballot mail-outs, and other irregularities are giving many Americans pause.
To this day, there are still several midterm elections that have yet to be called. In Arizona, Maricopa County had issues with its tabulators on the day of the election. These failures were criticized nationwide, with some conservatives warning of foul play.
Then, before that, there were reports of a Georgia mail truck that caught on fire, with the truck believed to be carrying ballots as well.
Unfortunately, these incidents are not exactly outliers. In New Jersey, for instance, a bunch of ballots have simply gone missing.
What to Know About New Jersey’s Missing Ballots
The missing ballots unsurprisingly trace back to Dominion Voting Systems. In Mercer County, the machines apparently were not able to process ballots after voters were done with them.
This subsequently led to at least thousands of ballots just vanishing. It is unclear what it will take to recover these ballots or how long the recovery process could go on. In the meantime, many Americans are once again wondering if something more sinister is happening.
NEW JERSEY.🗳️🚨
"Ballots from four voting districts in Mercer County have gone *MISSING* after paper ballots were shuttled between polling locations and the county election board following a complete failure of voting machines in Tuesday’s election." pic.twitter.com/W7dxOB3UWq
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 10, 2022
In Mercer County, manual voting has been floated as an alternative, in light of the issues with Dominion machines. Yet, there is no telling how secure these manual votes will be, how officials will handle these votes, or what they may do if and when missing ballots are later recovered.
Ultimately, there is a possibility of some votes slipping through the cracks. In New Jersey, specifically, some ballots are reportedly going to be counted by hand. Though this still fails to solve the greater issue.
Not Acceptable
In a similar parallel to Arizona’s non-functioning tabulators, New Jersey officials had ample time to ensure their voting machines were up to par. The failure to do this only further raises concerns about the security of our nation’s elections.
#BREAKING All voting machines are down in each district across Mercer County, New Jersey, according to officials. Voters can still vote using a standard ballot at their polling locations. https://t.co/1goCNonqSZ pic.twitter.com/UIbclLD96F
— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) November 8, 2022
As states struggle to handle and count votes, Joe Biden has been working overtime to have federal agencies insert themselves in state-level elections. If tabulators and other voting machines continue running into problems, the likelihood of fraud and irregularities will keep increasing.
