Atlantic County found its first major glitch in the all mail-in voting on the eve of Election Day.
Officials were in court as it was discovered 554 Hamilton Township voters got the wrong ballots pertaining to the election for District 3 county freeholder.
The district covers just parts of Egg Harbor and Hamilton townships.
But it turns out that 335 ballots sent to those in District 3 failed to include the option to vote for Democrat Thelma Witherspoon or Republican Andrew Parker III.
Another 219 voters who are not in District 3 were allowed to vote for one.
While there are 40,655 registered voters in the District, the last freeholder election was decided by 216 votes.
The issue was first brought to Witherspoon's attention when a constituent tagged her Sunday on Facebook asking why she was unable to vote for her.
Witherspoon started asking around and found others were missing the District 3 option, including her own grandson, who just turned 18 and was looking forward to casting a vote for his grandmother.
"At that point, I felt like I couldn’t breath," Witherspoon told BreakingAC.
She called attorney Rob Herman, who was able to get an emergent hearing before Assignment Judge Julio Mendez, who "was surprised by the nature and extent of the problem," Herman said.
A list is now being drawn up of those voters who were affected. Those will be distributed to poll workers in Hamilton Township, who can check off those who come in and provide them with provisional ballots.
But the more than 200 voters who already casts their inaccurate ballots are lost. Because the ballots already have been opened, they now are anonymous.
"I was pushing just like everybody else to get your votes in early," Witherspoon said. "It's just very disappointing."
"Since Gov. Murphy issued his executive order making this an all vote-by-mail election, Republicans have been telling everybody that it's a bad idea. Because it is," Parker said. "Now, here we are less than 24 hours ahead of Election Day, and we have voters with irregular ballots. In an election where we will see record-breaking turnout, the misstep by the county clerk will disenfranchise voters in the third district."
Ironically, the person who first drew attention to the issue may not have been affected, according to the outcome of the court hearing.
That voter lives in Egg Harbor Township, where only three districts are not part of the District 3. There were no wrong ballots linked there, Herman said.
Both candidates live in Egg Harbor Township.
Parker said he knew of the issue, but was not immediately available for comment.
Anyone who has not sent in their ballot and believes theirs is wrong may cast a provisional ballot on Tuesday.
Atlantic County Clerk Ed McGettigan did not respond to requests for comment.
