New Jersey
Early voting in New Jersey begins third day – New Jersey Globe
Good morning, New Jersey.
Today is the third of five days of in-person early voting for the 2024 primary election, with polling places across New Jersey operating from 10 AM to 8 PM.
Early voting centers will be open today and tomorrow from 10 AM to 8 PM, and on Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM
As long as voters are in line by the close of early voting each day, they may vote regardless of how long the lines are. Voters should never be asked to leave and come back the next day.
In New Jersey, you may only vote in the primary of your party affiliation; the deadline to switch parties has passed. However, unaffiliated voters may declare an affiliation at the polls and vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries.
This is New Jersey’s third election cycle to use early voting.
Voters may cast their ballots at any polling place in the county of their residence between today and Sunday:
Atlantic County Early Voting Poll Locations
Bergen County Early Voting Poll Locations
Burlington County Early Voting Poll Locations
Camden County Early Voting Poll Locations
Cape May County Early Voting Poll Locations
Cumberland County Early Voting Poll Locations
Essex County Early Voting Poll Locations
Gloucester County Early Voting Poll Locations
Hudson County Early Voting Poll Locations
Hunterdon County Early Voting Poll Locations
Mercer County Early Voting Poll Locations
Middlesex County Early Voting Poll Locations
Monmouth County Early Voting Poll Locations
Morris County Early Voting Poll Locations
Ocean County Early Voting Poll Locations
Passaic County Early Voting Poll Locations
Salem County Early Voting Poll Locations
Somerset County Early Voting Poll Locations
Sussex County Early Voting Poll Locations
Union County Early Voting Poll Locations
Warren County Early Voting Poll Locations
First-time voters who registered by mail might need to provide identification at the polls.
Anyone who has already received a vote-by-mail ballot may not vote by machine but can seek a replacement mail-in ballot from their county clerk, or request a provisional ballot on Election Day.
With less than one week to go before Election Day, voters should casting vote-by-mail-in ballots consider skipping the U.S. Postal Service and using secure ballot drop boxes in the county where they reside:
Atlantic County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Bergen County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Burlington County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Camden County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Cape May County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Cumberland County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Essex County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Gloucester County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Hudson County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Hunterdon County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Mercer County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Middlesex County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Monmouth County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Morris County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Ocean County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Passaic County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Salem County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Somerset County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Sussex County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Union County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Warren County Secure Ballot Drop Box Locations
Attorney General Matt Platkin said on Tuesday that the state’s Voter Protection Initiative will watch for voting rights and civil rights violations during early voting and on Election Day.
“We will do everything in our power to ensure that every eligible voter is able to exercise this fundamental right without facing intimidation, discrimination, or harassment,” Platkin said. “We have built the infrastructure to promptly resolve voting-related issues, and we will hold accountable anyone who attempts to disrupt our democratic process.”
The Office of Public Integrity and Accountability will monitor allegations of voter intimidation, election fraud and interference, illegal electioneering, and other criminal violations.
The OPIA has spent the last four years pursuing election fraud charges filed against Paterson Councilmen Alex Mendez and Michael Jackson; the two were re-elected earlier this month while under indictment and awaiting trial. An investigation into racist flyers in the 2017 elections in Edison and Hoboken has turned into cold cases that the OPIA has been unable to crack.
New Jersey’s Voter Information and Assistance Hotline can be reached at 1-877-NJVOTER (1-877-658-6837).
The American Civil Liberties Union Hotline can be reached at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).
Click HERE to check your voter registration.
Click HERE to Track Your Ballot.
Superior Court judges across the state will be available through Sunday to conduct remote hearings if New Jerseyans believe they were improperly rejected from early voting.
Voters should not leave their polling location just because an election worker says they don’t appear on their rolls. Instead, they should contact election officials to determine the status of their registration. A provisional ballot can be requested on Election Day, but that won’t fix the problem; if a name does not show up on the voter list, and the issue is not addressed, election officials will likely reject the ballot.
Instead, voters who believe a mistake was made can request to appear before a judge. This can be done remotely by video or telephone; it’s not necessary to go to the courthouse, although that is an option.
Election officials will arrange for a judge to hear election-related issues on the same day.
Early voting centers are open on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 10 AM to 8 PM and on Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM. Click HERE to find an early voting location.
Voters should begin with their county election officials:
Atlantic County
Bergen County
Burlington County
Camden County
Cape May County
Cumberland County
Essex County
Gloucester County
Hudson County
Hunterdon County
Mercer County
Middlesex County
Monmouth County
Morris County
Ocean County
Passaic County
Salem County
Somerset County
Sussex County
Union County
Warren County
3-minute read
Charter schools explained. What is a Charter School?
What exactly is a Charter School? Let’s break down the basics: what they are, where they came from and how they work.
Paul Wood Jr, NorthJersey.com
New K-12 bills aimed at curbing inflated salaries and nepotism by improving transparency in the state’s public charter schools are headed to Gov. Phil Murphy for signing, coinciding with a state comptroller’s report that accuses a prominent South Jersey charter school of violating state laws.
The school installed a private vendor to oversee its management without due process, with the school superintendent appointing herself as the vendor’s CEO and naming other family members to key leadership positions, the report said.
The new proposals address transparency, governance, athletics, budgets and salaries for top leadership, said Harry Lee, head of the state’s charter school lobby, the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
They also reward high-performing charter schools by making it easier for schools to consolidate, and introduces a 10-year-renewal clause, up from a five-year renewal, through the state Department of Education.
Story continues below photo gallery.
“These bipartisan bills modernize New Jersey’s 30-year-old charter school law by strengthening transparency, accountability and oversight, while continuing to support high-performing charter schools,” said the bills’ sponsor, state Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth. “Public dollars deserve public accountability, and New Jersey’s students and families deserve nothing less.”
The comptroller’s report targeted CAPS Greater Asbury Park Charter School. News reports detailed the charter school executive director’s husband renting out school property and receiving cash for uniform sales that were not documented.
School staff members called attention to corrupt practices for three years, ending in the board of trustees firing the executive director and her husband in 2024, the comptroller’s report said.
The state has also identified other murky practices, such as school authorities installing CAPS Inc. as its charter management association through a contract process that bypassed competitors and gave it “sweeping authority.”
Several high-performing charter schools in the state, including in Plainfield and Paterson, operate under the umbrella of CAPS, or College Achieve Public Schools.
While many charter schools in the state have been compliant with the law, there were outliers that made it necessary for legislators to act and update the state’s charter schools law, which dates back to 1995, Lee said.
“This bill provides consistency and will require more transparency around school leader contracts,” Lee told NorthJersey.com. “We had issues of a couple of school leader salaries that were out of control. This will absolutely clamp down on that.
“This also improves governance,” Lee said. “So there’s now new requirements for governance around qualifications, residency, where one-third of school trustees have to live or work in the district or region in which the charter school is located, as well as new training requirements.”
Prevents athletic ‘super teams’
The bills will also prevent the creation of “super teams” in high school athletics, after CAPS Greater Asbury Park faced allegations that it built a winning basketball team that won a state title with players recruited from all over the state, including Trenton and Irvington, who were motivated to transfer to CAPS to train under a reputed coach.
If the bills become law, every charter school will also have to post all board of trustees meeting notices, meeting dates and the minutes of each meeting on the charter school’s website in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act. A second bill prohibits charter schools from imposing further criteria that would narrow the pool of students already selected by lottery, bars them from advising or counseling enrolled students to leave the school, and lays out rules for interscholastic athletics participation.
The proposals have the support of two parties that have historically opposed each other — the powerful public school teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, and the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
Critics and many public school advocates have long accused charters of siphoning off public funds from public districts, while serving selective populations. The NJEA, which opposed them for years on the grounds that they adhered to fewer accountability measures, views the new bills as a step toward addressing this.
Public charters, on the other hand, are viewed by many as a solution for underserved students, as evidenced in improved test scores and student performance in the state’s six urban districts where most of the 85 schools are. An analysis of 2025 test scores on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment showed that 71% of charter school students in six urban districts, Camden, Jersey City, Plainfield, Trenton, Paterson and Newark, were more likely to read at grade level and 65% more likely to do math at grade level compared with their district peers, the state charter association said.
Charter schools enroll students through a free lottery entered by parents. The schools’ chargers, or “contracts,” can be revoked at any time by the governor’s office if they do not meet key benchmarks of student performance and fiscal and organizational sustainability. However, like public schools, charters are free of cost and are run primarily using taxpayer money from sending school districts, based on the number of students the districts send.
The Garden State is turning up the heat on parents to help prevent unruly behavior by teenagers.
It’s been an ongoing problem that has played out in the past few years in several beach towns and other communities.
Two bills were signed into law this week by Gov. Phil Murphy that build on prior efforts to crack down on the type of disruptive and violent antics seen in towns throughout the state.
“I think it’s smart to try and, like, kind of corral this issue a little bit, because it’s definitely gotten worse as I’ve gotten older,” Ocean City resident Madelyn Adamson said. “Making sure the parents kind of control their kids a little more is probably the way to go.”
One of the laws aims to hold parents and guardians more accountable by imposing consequences on them.
Any adults who have shown neglect or disregard for supervising their kids who incite public brawls could be charged with a disorderly persons offense.
The grown-ups could also get fined $1,000 for unruly behavior by teens that leads to property damage.
A second law requires the state Attorney General to create a crowd management training program for police in areas hit by more than one pop-up party or flash mob in the past year.
While public safety is at the heart of the new laws, officials say there’s an economic aspect to all of this as well, especially in shore towns that are highly dependent on tourism.
“A Memorial Day weekend public brawl that’s all over the news? People don’t want to come down the shore the next weekend and that hurts all kinds of small business, large business,” NJ Senator Paul Moriarty said.
From Camden and Cherry Hill to Trenton and the Jersey Shore, what about life in New Jersey do you want WHYY News to cover? Let us know.
On Monday, the final day of the current New Jersey legislative session, lawmakers in the General Assembly and state Senate passed three bills designed to strengthen public trust and safety in immigrant communities across the Garden State, and to protect them from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and roundups.
To become law, the legislation must be signed by outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy before he leaves office Jan. 20. New Jersey has the second-largest immigrant population in the country after California.
The Safe Communities Act requires the state attorney general to develop a plan for how sensitive locations such as public schools, health care facilities and houses of worship would interact with federal immigration authorities without deterring community members from seeking services or engaging with them.
The act mandates that the commissioners of Community Affairs, Children and Families, Health, Human Services, Education and Corrections, as well as the administrative director of the courts, adopt the attorney general’s model policies, or policies to provide greater protection for community members, and to prominently display them in public-facing areas.
The Privacy Protection Act limits the collection and sharing of data by federal government and health care entities to ensure that Jersey residents are not discouraged from seeking necessary services.
The third measure codifies the attorney general’s Immigrant Trust Directive, which draws a clear distinction between state, county and local law enforcement officers — who are responsible for enforcing state criminal law — and federal immigration authorities, including ICE, who enforce federal civil immigration law. The bill limits the voluntary assistance that state law enforcement officers may provide to federal authorities. The directive, which is designed to foster trust between police and community members, has withstood legal challenges by state and federal courts since it was issued in 2018.
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