A 77-year-old Union County woman who says she hasn’t missed an election since she became legally eligible to vote in 1970 won’t be disenfranchised in 2026 just because the U.S. Postal Service moves slowly.
Superior Court Judge John Hudak today ordered the Board of Elections to place the woman on the voter rolls after she testified that she mailed her voter registration form on October 6, one week before the deadline; it took postal workers two weeks to deliver it from one part of Union County to the other.
“She has a history of voting going back to when she could first vote many years ago, and it’s quite incredible that she said she’s never not voted in an election,” Hudak stated.
The woman said she initially voted in Pennsylvania until moving to Union County in the 1970s, and that she’d moved out of state for several years before returning to the county this spring.
As the voter attempted to calculate the year she first voted in her head, Hudak told her he was already convinced.
“We don’t need to do that math,” he said. “We don’t need to do that math here. Just a while ago.”
“A long time ago,” the woman replied.
This decision, and others this week, indicate a growing willingness by the state’s judiciary to consider special circumstances of individual voters advocating against their own disenfranchisement; the attorney general’s office did not take a position on any of these matters; in prior years, they had rigidly opposed most voter applications.
Superior Court Judge William G. Mennen IV ordered that a Hunterdon County man who had been previously registered in Hudson but encountered vote registration difficulties during an interaction with the Motor Vehicles Commission.
“The issues with motor vehicles are not great. I feel like his attempts to try to register the first time and then having to go back again after the deadline are truth,” said Beth Thompson, the Hunterdon County election administrator. “We didn’t receive the record until October 24th, so that put us in a position where we could not do anything with the record until we got a judge’s permission.”
Mennen said MVC voter registration issues “has been a systemic issue over time.” He pointed to an appellate court decision that “drew a distinction between a brand new registrant seeking to vote and someone who is simply moving from one country to another who was already registered to vote within the state of New Jersey.”
“This court recognizes that the right to vote — voter enfranchisement — is an imperative,” Mennen said. “It is a constitutional imperative.”
Mennen also allowed a Somerset County woman to vote after she testified that she mailed her voter registration by the October 13 deadline, even though the Board of Elections said it received it on October 19. Mennen noted that the application was dated on October 13 and that the post office did not date-stamp the envelope.
“I do have a form voter registration application that was executed on that date. I have affirmation of the fact that it was executed on that date by the voter. I have the voter’s testimony that in executing it by that date, she was demonstrating her intent as of that time to register,” he said.
He said judges “should do everything we can to ensure that we protect voter enfranchisement.”
In Ocean County, Superior Court Judge Robert Brenner allowed a 19-year-old woman to become a first-time voter after she testified that she had attempted to register online “about nine or ten times” before the deadline, but the system kept rejecting it.
Still, judges have upheld a statute requiring voters to register at least 21 days before Election Day, even when applicants acknowledged they had made no effort to register earlier, and even when would-be voters said they were unaware of the deadline.
The courts now livestream election matters for public view, making the New Jersey judiciary one of the most transparent in the nation.
The New Jersey Globe withholds the names of voters appearing in court to protect their privacy.