DeCroce wants early voting in municipal buildings for 2020

New Jerseyans would be allowed to vote in-person using machines for the fourteen days preceding the 2020 general election under legislation proposed today by Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce (R-Parsippany).

DeCroce wants at least one early polling location per municipality, with extra locations for larger counties.

“To rely on millions of mail-in ballots to decide the November elections is simply courting electoral catastrophe,” said DeCroce. “If the legislature and governor truly want to protect the integrity of the General Election it is imperative to have as many people as possible voting via traditional voting machines.” 

It seems unlikely that DeCroce’s plan move quickly enough through the legislature to enact it in time for the upcoming general election.

Gov. Phil Murphy, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin have indicated support for early voting – a bill moved through a Senate committee last week that would be effective next year – but there is no indication that election officials could be ready to implement early voting this fall.

“No one is forced to go to a polling station this year, but there are many people who have doubts about the integrity of the mail-in voting system and they want to vote the same way they have doing for years – at a polling booth,” said DeCroce, who thinks VBM ballots enhances voter disenfranchisement than voting machines. “The over-reliance on mail in ballots to decide the very important November election would put New Jersey and the United States in a category of electoral disarray on par with Third World countries,” said DeCroce.

DeCroce said reliance on mail-in balloting presents a greater opportunity for disenfranchisement of voters than using traditional voting machines.