22.5% of all 2021 votes were cast by VBM ballots

New Jerseyans cast 594,840 votes-by-mail ballots for the November 2 election, representing 22.5% of all votes cast in this year’s contest for governor, state legislature, and county and local offices.

Camden County had the highest VBM percentage in the state, with 45.4% of all general election votes cast this year being done by mail-in ballots.  A total of 68,783 votes were cast through VBMs.

Next highest was Middlesex (35.6%), followed by Mercer (31.6%).

The smallest percentage of voters in the state using mail-in ballots was Sussex, where just 13.9% voted by mail.

Vote-by-mail participation four recent general elections, where percentages grew from 8.3% in 2017 to 16.7% in 2019.

In an election that was conducted almost entirely by mail in response to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 will remain a permanent outlier unless New Jersey moves away from in-person voting.  A total of 4,433,523 vote-by-mail ballots were cast in last year’s general election, 93.5%.