Four weeks out, N.J. voter turnout is already at 2%

With four weeks to go, New Jersey voters have cast 127,600 mail-in ballots for the mid-term elections – 14% of all ballots already sent out by election officials – according to an analysis by Ryan Dubicki, an election researcher for the Associated Press.

Election officials have mailed 912,005 ballots, representing roughly 14% of the state’s nearly 6.5 million voters.  Democrats requested nearly six in ten vote-by-mail ballots (57%), while 18.5% of Republicans have received VBMs.   While both parties are returning mail-in- ballots at a relatively equal rate, 355,974 more Democrats have requested to vote early.

In key legislative districts, Democrats lead in returned vote-by-mail ballots:

* District 3: About three times as many Democrats requested VBMs as Republicans; Democrats have returned 3,081 more ballots than Republicans.   More than one in four mailed ballots (26%) have been returned.

* District 4:  Democrats have a 3-1 edge on requested ballots and a 3-1 edge on returned ballots.  Almost 69% of all ballots received by county election officials so far come from Democrats.  19% of all VBMs have been returned so far.

* District 11: Ballots have gone out to 6,364 more Democrats than Republicans, with Democrats holding a 56%-18% edge in possible VBMS.  A total of 16.5% of all mailed ballots have been marked as returned, with 67% of them coming from Democrats.

* District 16: Of the 34,657 vote-by-mail ballots sent out by county clerks, 55% went to Democrats and 18% to Republicans.  15% of VBMs have been marked as returned; 63% of those ballots were cast by Democrats and 23% by Republicans.

* District 38: The Bergen County Clerk mailed 18,605 ballots —  55% to Democrats and 16% to Republicans.  17% of mail-in ballots have been returned; 69% of the VBMs currently received come from Democrats and 12% from Republicans.

Republican State Chairman Bob Hugin said on Monday that it could take Republicans a decade to catch up on vote-by-mail ballots