Who won? How NJ counts early, mail-in and Election Day votes

Early in-person voting has been running since Oct. 26.

Vote-by-mail ballots have been coming into county Board of Elections offices for weeks.

But not one of those votes will be opened and counted until Nov. 5.

When polls close at 8 p.m., county offices will begin counting votes — most likely millions of them — that were received in person on and before Election Day.

Counting vote-by-mail ballots

Vote-by-mail ballots can be counted starting when polls open at 6 a.m. on Election Day.

Only registered voters who applied for such a ballot are able to submit one through the mail, at a drop box, or straight to a Board of Elections office.

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If someone receives a vote-by-mail ballot but wants to vote in person instead on Election Day, they'll receive a provisional ballot. That ballot will go through a verification process before it can be counted to ensure that a person doesn't vote twice.

It's essentially a given that not all vote-by-mail ballots will be counted in the hours after polls close because the law permits these ballots to be accepted for a number of days following Election Day, as long as they're postmarked on or before Election Day. Any vote-by-mail ballots without a postmark will be accepted for 48 hours after Election Day.

Counting the ballots from early voting

Hunterdon County Clerk Mary Melfi tells New Jersey 101.5 that once early in-person voting wraps up on Nov. 3 at 6 p.m., votes from the machines (on flash drives) are secured under lock and key until Election Day.

"Those results will not come over to my office to be tallied until 8 p.m. Election Night," Melfi said.

The machines used for early voting, Melfi added, can't be the same machines that are used on Election Day. And those machines have to be sequestered, just in case questions or issues arise once vote counting begins.

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In real time, poll books can mark that a constituent's vote has been cast, so that no one has the ability to vote in person more than once.

Counting provisional ballots

Provisional ballots are issued when a voter's eligibility can't be verified on the spot. These paper ballots are still completed in private before they're placed into a "provisional ballot" bag at the polling place.

These ballots are not counted at the polling place.

After polls close, all provisional ballots are taken to the County Commissioner of Registration's office for verification and counting by the county Board of Elections, according to the New Jersey Department of State.

2024 election results

Expect results to start posting online right after polls close.

Each county is supposed to have an easily accessible site online where people can follow unofficial election results. Those results will continue to change as votes from Election Day are counted.

The pages will likely first reflect votes that were gathered during early in-person voting and/or vote-by-mail ballots.

County offices do not count votes remotely. In Somerset County, for example, records of every vote are transported from each of the dozens of polling places to the Board of Elections in Somerville for tabulation.

The state's Division of Election website will not post any unofficial results on Election Night but county clerks will. New Jersey 101.5 will be posting election results as they are reported by clerks on election night. 

Nov. 25 is the deadline for county clerks in New Jersey to transmit the election results to the Secretary of State.

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