Congressman Chris Smith and Monmouth County Shaun Golden prepared to survey Hurricane Sandy damage
Congressman Chris Smith easily defeated his Democratic challenger, Brian Froelich of Spring Lake, to earn his 17th term in the House of Representative. Smith new 4th district includes most of Monmouth County and parts of Ocean and Mercer County.
With 68% of the vote, Smith is the only Republican in the New Jersey delegation to break 60%.
Middletown OEM and Mayor Tony Fiore have ordered a mandatory evacuation of North Middletown, Port Monmouth, Belford, and Leonardo, due to the oncoming nor’easter, effective 3PM today, November 7.
Fiore said that the evacucation is due to expected tidal flooding and as a precaution because of the severe structural damage caused to the many homes in the area Hurricane Sandy last week.
Atlantic Highland Police Chief Jerry Vasto announced via reverse 9-11 call this morning that the borough in not subject to a mandatory evacuation due to the coming nor’easter, contrary to news reports.
Congressman Frank Pallone defeated Anna Little by 32% in their 6th congressional district rematch, earning a 13th term in the House of Representatives.
148,251 votes were cast for Pallone district wide compared to 75,519 for Little.
Pallone won all four voting districts in Highlands, Little’s home where she served as mayor from 2008-2010.
In the Monmouth County portion of the district Pallone won the voting machine tally by 41,462-33,202. These numbers do not yet reflect the thousands of paper ballots that were cast in the Middletown Township portion of the district where the machines malfunctioned. Additionally, v0ters who received email and fax ballots by 5PM on election day have until 8PM Friday to deliver those ballots to the Board of Elections.
In Middlesex County, Pallone earned 71% of the vote, 100,040 of the 141,502 machine ballots cast.
The likelihood of Little overcoming that lead with provisional, paper and emergency ballots is nil.
It could be a week or more until New Jersey’s votes are tallied due to the huge increase in provisional ballots cast both at the polls and via the email/fax voting system that Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno announced this week to accommodate voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy.
is reporting that the vote by fax or email allowance has resulting in mass confusion and fear that thousands of votes will not be counted. Guadagno extended the deadline to apply for a ballot until 5PM today and the deadline for the ballot to be received until 8PM on Friday.
Thousands of voters are complaining that their emails applying for ballots are bouncing back from full email boxes and that phone numbers are busy or going unanswered.
In addition to the email/fax voting problems, polling places are accepting provisional ballots from displaced voters and from out of state law enforcement/recuse workers who have traveled to New Jersey to assist in the recovery efforts. Each of those provisional ballots will have to be manually verified before being counted.
Ballots cast by early voters at county election offices throughout the state will have to be checked to be sure that those who took advantage of the early voting privilege did not also go to the polls to vote.
In Middletown, approximately half the the voting districts voted exclusively by paper ballots due to a voting machine programing errors, primarily in the 6th congressional district portion of the Township, according to Mayor Tony Fiore. “Epic Fail on the part of whoever was in charge of those voting machines,” Fiore said, “the county only provided us with about 50 paper ballots. We reproduced ballots on our own at a secure location.”
There is record turnout at the polls in Asbury Park and Long Branch, according to a Democratic source.
Congressman Chris Smith and Monmouth County Shaun Golden prepared to survey Hurricane Sandy damage