In an editorial, Knitty Gritty JC member Courtney Walker details the confusion related to a recent letter from the Hudson County Clerk’s Office about vote-by-mail ballots.
Recently, many of us across Hudson County opened our mailboxes to find a letter from the County Clerk. It stated we would be removed from the list of voters who receive mail-in ballots.
Why? Because, although we were on the mail-in ballot list, we hadn’t voted by mail “at any time in four consecutive years beginning with the 2020 General Election cycle.”
But I voted in every election year since moving to New Jersey in 2018, and by mail multiple times since 2020.
Friends and neighbors told me they felt just as confused. They wondered whether they would still receive their vote-by-mail ballots this year, or even whether their ballots had been properly counted in past elections.
I quickly emailed our state legislative office and the county elections office to try to clarify the situation. Their workload had exploded because of the mailing. Concerned voters like me were contacting them, trying to understand what the letter meant.
It seems that the County Clerk attempted to notify voters who had been removed from the vote-by-mail list, along with others, about their options ahead of the upcoming primary.
But because the message was poorly worded, it led to confusion. The mailing didn’t clearly distinguish between different groups of voters.
The good news is: if you’re on the vote-by-mail list and received one of these mailings, and you have voted-by-mail in the last four years, you should still receive your mail-in ballot this year.
You can always double-check your voting record or voter registration at https://voter.svrs.nj.gov/auth/sign-in.
You can also reach the Hudson County Superintendent of Elections office at SuperintendentofElections@hcnj.us or call (201) 369-7740. Take steps to stay informed about your voting options this year.
But sadly, the damage from this mailing may be difficult to reverse.
Research shows that official government mailings influence voter turnout more than any other kind of mail. As the book Get Out the Vote points out: “Mail sent by an official source, such as a registrar of voters, is roughly twice as effective as ordinary nonpartisan mail.”
Whether this mailing was just poorly worded or outright incorrect, the fact that it went out to so many voters raises serious concerns about negligence and a failure to properly inform voters of their rights.
It also raises red flags about potential voter suppression in this year’s elections.
So, where does the county go from here? Having worked in risk management, I spent a lot of time analyzing mistakes to figure out how to address them. What I know is that the key to understanding mistakes is realizing they’re systemic.
In other words, it’s never just one person’s fault, it’s a signal that better checks need to be in place to catch errors before they go out.
One of my old managers loved the “Swiss cheese model.” The idea is that a single slice of cheese has holes in it, but if you stack enough slices on top of each other, the holes start to get covered up.
Each slice represents a control or process. The more layers you have, the less likely it is that an error will slip through every single one.
It’s time for the county to take a hard look at its current processes and ensure that they prevent failures like this in the future.
Possible improvements include adding second-level checks, creating a clear procedure or playbook for official public mailings, providing additional training on communications, and implementing other controls tailored to this specific issue.
I would also like to know what the county plans to do about its ongoing voter turnout problem.
As I mentioned in a previous Op-Ed, we’ve consistently ranked among the lowest in voter turnout across New Jersey for the past 20 years. It’s time we take a proactive approach to fixing this issue – instead of reacting to problems local officials create.
Courtney Walker is an organizing committee member of the Knitty Gritty JC, a women-led pro- democracy group in Jersey City.
