Bomb threats and lawsuits. Never a dull Election Day in New Jersey.
The threats were sent to polling locations in seven New Jersey counties, including Passaic, where the U.S. Department of Justice has sent federal election monitors, according to law enforcement officials. Voting was halted temporarily as law enforcement responded, with elections officials switching polling sites to meet what was determined to be noncredible threats.
“Law enforcement has determined that there are no credible threats at this time,” Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, a Democrat who also serves as New Jersey’s top election official, said in a statement. “We are doing everything in our power to protect voters and poll workers and coordinate closely with state, local and federal partners to ensure a smooth and safe election.”
The emails were sent to polling sites in Bergen, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic Counties, according to Attorney General Matt Platkin. Passaic County, a traditional blue county that President Donald Trump won in 2024, is the home of “one of the most notorious mail-in ballot fraud scandals in recent memory,” according to the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
As The Federalist reported, a whopping 19 percent of the mail-in ballots in a 2020 special election in Paterson (county seat of Passaic County) were found to be fraudulent. The Board of Elections was forced to disqualify nearly 3,200 votes. The attorney general’s office charged four men with criminal conduct. The case lingers on in court.
“The incident was so serious that a judge threw out the entire election and ordered a new one,” notes the report, “Troubled History, Troubling Choices: Passaic County’s Failed Election Safeguards.
No ‘Cure’?
Mail-in ballots continue to be an issue in New Jersey’s 2025 gubernatorial election. On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee intervened in a lawsuit filed by Democrats demanding that the Bergen County Board of Elections disregard state election law and allow some 300 voters to “cure” — or correct — their mail-in ballots that were returned with unsealed envelopes.
As attorneys for the New Jersey Republican Party argue, the relief requested by the New Jersey Democratic State Committee doesn’t stand under a previous appellate court holding that state election law “does not permit voters to cure mail in ballots that are missing the information required on the inner envelope.” Plain and simple.
“Democrats are once again trying to change election rules at the last minute to count ineligible ballots,” Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters said Tuesday afternoon in a press release. “New Jersey law is clear — unsealed or tampered ballots can’t be counted. That’s why the RNC is supporting the NJGOP’s efforts to make sure only lawful votes are counted.”
Pavel Sokolov, Hudson County GOP State Committeeman, told The Federalist that the Democrats’ lawsuit could signal some desperation for the party that has long dominated New Jersey politics.
“If the Democrats are suing their own county — because Bergen County is a Democrat county — they must not be particularly confident in the state results,” the Republican Party official said in a phone interview.
He said in-person voting on Election Day is “leaning toward Republicans,” as it often does. What remains to be seen is the vote total coming from the polls after the workday ends, Sokolov added.
Other than some issues with some complaints about electioneering near polls, Sokolov said New Jersey polling sites in Hudson County and elsewhere in northern New Jersey seemed to be operating smoothly.
Off the Books
Neighbor state Pennsylvania was dealing with a significant polling book “error” on Election Day. As The Federalist’s Beth Brelje reported, approximately 75,000 independent and unaffiliated voters in Chester County will be forced to cast provisional ballots after their names were left off the county’s poll books.
“We are working to get supplemental poll books to every polling place. Until that time, any registered voter who is not listed in the pollbook can vote provisionally,” Chester County Voter Services posted Tuesday on its website. Later in the afternoon, the county updated the message to indicate the supplemental poll books “had been deployed to Chester County’s 230 polling locations.”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
