Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
By MADDY VITALE
Heading into Tuesday, more than 60 percent of Cape May County voters have already cast their ballots in an election that is one for the books.
“People are hyper-focused on this election. I have never experienced this where people are hyper-focused the way they are,” County Clerk Rita Marie Fulginiti said in an interview Monday afternoon.
The race that likely has everyone anxious is the presidential election, with President Donald Trump and Joe Biden slugging it out in the last hours of the bitter, divisive campaign.
Then there is the U.S. Senate race with Democratic incumbent Sen. Cory Booker against Republican challenger Rik Meht. In the hotly contested 2nd Congressional District race, incumbent Republican Jeff Van Drew is facing Democratic challenger Amy Kennedy.
Cape May County Freeholder incumbents Will Morey and Jeff Pierson are running against Democrats Liz Casey and Brendan Sciarra. Fulginiti and Cape May County Sheriff Bob Nolan, both Republicans, are each running unopposed for new terms.
With just one day to go, Fulginiti said about 63 percent of county voters have already cast their ballots. Out of 72,744 ballots issued to active registered voters, as of Friday, Oct. 30, 45,722 ballots had already been returned.
“That is 63 percent of Cape May County voters who have already returned their voting ballots and that doesn’t include what we collected Saturday,” Fulginiti explained. “We will go into Election Day at 66 or 67 percent of the ballots in.”
She noted that in her 35 years of working in county government, she had never seen anything like this election season.
“In 2008 when Barack Obama ran for his first term, there was a high turnout. I can remember in the week before the election, 100 people were in our office every day to get a mail-in-ballot,” Fulginiti recalled. “The message was of hope. I was blown away by the response Obama had on voters, but this year, the election response is quite astounding.”
This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of New Jersey's votes are being done by mail-in ballots.
Voters can vote in-person at a polling location on Election Day, but only by a paper provisional ballot. If you have a disability that prevents you from voting on a paper ballot, you will be provided access to a voting machine.
In Cape May County, voters had the option of mailing in their ballots or using one of the 11 drop boxes around the county to cast their votes.
For Fulginiti and her staff at the Clerk’s Office and the County Board of Elections employees, work has been very busy.
“We have replaced more than 1,000 voters’ ballots because they either tore them up or misplaced them,” she said. “People are just driven. They are coming in our office. The lines have been constant and out the door. People are just waiting in line to return their ballots or get new ones.”
More than 60 percent of Cape May County's registered voters have already voted.
Fulginiti also said that countless emails and phone calls are also coming into the Clerk’s Office from people trying to find out if their ballots were in.
The Cape May County Election Department's website at www.capemaycountyvotes.com
