State won’t have voter file updated before filing deadline

The New Jersey Division of Elections missed a deadline on Friday to update the Statewide Voter Registration System to reflect new congressional, legislative, ward and voting district maps in advance of the April 4 filing deadline.

The New Jersey Globe has confirmed that Bob Giles, the direction of the Division of Elections, told election officials in a conference call on Friday that the SVRS will not be updated because some counties had not submitted their plans for wards or voting districts.  Giles told them he’d decided not to update the system until data for all 21 counties is at hand.

That means some candidates who use the statewide voter database to self-verify their petition signatures prior to filing might be relying in inaccurate data.   It is also potentially problematic for county committee candidates gathering signatures in newly-drawn voting districts.

This also creates an obstacle for judges who might be asked to decide challenges to the petitions later this week.  They use the SVRS to determine the validity of signers.

Congressional Shapefiles were loaded in the testing environment and approved by the counties and are now in the production environment. The Ward and Election District Shapefiles received from the counties are currently being reviewed by those counties in the testing environment. Once approved they will be moved into the production environment,” Giles said.  “The Legislative district changes don’t go into effect until 2023 so they will not be loaded into the SVRS until after the November General Election.”

Nominating petitions for the U.S. House of Representatives prepared by the state have a sort of “cover-your-buttocks” disclaimed.  For the first time, candidates are required to accept responsibility for understanding the intricacies of reapportionment.

“By checking this box, I acknowledge that I have confirmed my congressional district at the following link: https://www.njredistrictingcommission.org/adoption2022map.asp.  I further acknowledge the  congressional district listed above is the district I intend on being a candidate in as a result of re-districting,” the petition states.

That verbiage did not appear on petitions in past redistricting cycles, and the statutory authority to add it this year remains unclear.

Delays potentially affect the accuracy of vote-by-mail ballots for ward council elections in the May 10 non-partisan municipal elections.

New Jersey Democrats are seeking an early 2024 presidential primary and issues pertaining to voter database issues could work against them.