Not So Fast, Ciattarelli Says, on That Call in Governor's Race in NJ

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, Pool

Some outlets, including the AP, called the New Jersey governor’s race late yesterday for the incumbent Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy when the difference was under a point, with 50 to 49.2 percent.

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But not so fast, says the challenger Jack Ciattarelli calling it “irresponsible.”

‘With the candidates separated by a fraction of a percent out of 2.4 million ballots cast, it’s irresponsible of the media to make this call when the New Jersey Secretary of State doesn’t even know how many ballots are left to be counted,’ Ciattarelli Campaign Communications Director Stami Williams tweeted just 20 minutes after the declaration.

Ciattarelli retweeted Williams’ post in protest of the call.

Many are thinking that recount is inevitable given the close nature of the race, although — with more mail-ins being counted — the difference is now about 40,000 with 50 to 48.8, at last check.

There is no automatic recount law in New Jersey, people have to petition for it in court within 17 days.

New Jersey being New Jersey, there were a variety of issues with the counting.

As I wrote on Election Day, some of the numbers were slow coming in from Essex and Passaic Counties, counties generally thought to be heavily Democratic.

The reason why was allegedly the poll workers’ unfamiliarity with the machines. Poll workers apparently accidentally locked themselves out of their machines in Paterson in Passaic County before all the ballots could be counted on some of the machines. Something similar happened in 56 voting districts in Essex County, causing the machines to be turned off before their ballots were tallied, local election officials said.

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“Those machines have to be brought back to the warehouse, and the judge will issue an order for us to open those machines, retrieve the results and post those results,’’ County Clerk Christopher Durkin told News 12.

He told The Post on Wednesday that he expects to have the districts’ results by Thursday night.

A judge has to issue an order to open the machines.

There were also issues in Hudson County, where at least some of the ballots were temporarily counted twice, an issue they allegedly corrected.

There were additional concerns that people had about what happened in Bergen County. As we noted on election night, it was unusual that Ciatterelli was winning Bergen County. While there are certainly more conservative areas in Bergen — my old stomping grounds — it went to Joe Biden in the last election so it was a big deal to see those numbers with the GOP candidate up by five points at one point with allegedly 100 percent of the vote in. The numbers flipped 52 percent to 47 percent with Ciattarelli up to Murphy 51 percent – Ciattarelli 47 percent in the early morning hours. That naturally had people concerned that something funny was afoot.

Bergen County put this statement on their website, addressing the question.

THE CURRENT 100% FIGURE REPRESENTS THAT ALL VOTERS OF 70 TOWNS WHO CAME OUT TO CAST THEIR VOTE AT THE POLLS ON ELECTION DAY WERE RECEIVED AND COUNTED. PLEASE UNDERSTAND WE ALSO HAVE EARLY VOTING, VOTE BY MAIL AND PROVISIONAL BALLOT RESULTS TO STILL BE INTEGRATED INTO THE LINK. ONCE ALL VOTES HAVE BEEN COUNTED AND CERTIFIED THE RESULTS WILL BE MARKED AS OFFICIAL.

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In other words, 100 percent doesn’t exactly mean what you would think it would mean.

In a related story, we reported earlier that Project Veritas just dropped a video raising questions about a poll worker allowing a non-citizen to fill out what seems to be a provisional ballot which they’re not supposed to be able to do.

So we’ll let you know when and if a recount is filed, but it’s likely coming next when Ciattarelli issues such remarks.

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