The recent November 9 Election Day quickly turned into a prolonged post-election daze when the big winner was declared: confusion.
The flummoxing started when voters showing up at the polls were greeted with the news that a programming glitch shut down the Mercer County Board of Elections-secured digital voting machines and that the election would now be conducted via paper ballots and sharpies.
In addition to already being perplexed about what was going on and why, Mercer County voters got another and more problematic dose of bewilderment later in the day.
That’s when county officials somehow missed the opportunity to provide an organized and coherent message to inform voters how the counts were going, when tallies would be announced, and where to get updated information.
While social media grumblings can be counted as a generalized public testament to the confusion, I got the full treatment when I attempted to get the answer to who won the City of Trenton’s mayoral election.
Since I am a regular election follower, I was connected and ready to get informed about how the county was handling its self-induced problem and how the counting was going.
My go to place was the Mercer County Clerk’s website — linked to the New Jersey State Division of Elections website.
When I checked in a few hours after the polls had closed, I was encouraged to see numbers placed next to the candidates running on the national and local levels.
Then the confusion started. First, on the banner above was a brief message saying there were problems with voting machines but people could still vote — after the polls had been closed.
The second was that a small note indicated that results represented zero precincts reporting with nothing indicating where the votes came from — leaving the viewer to presume they were from early voters.
I logged out and returned a few hours later to find the same message, no updated numbers, and no new message from the county.
The same was true when I checked in the next morning. Then, at some point, someone removed the still being able to vote message and replaced it with nothing.
Meanwhile as I was searching the internet for some help or notice I saw the above-mentioned tallies used by an online news source using the already posted information as a guide to where the elections were heading and another one reporting the data without mentioning that it was just a small fraction of the vote.
I could see more social media complaints and was in communication with people who just wanted to know what was going on.
I also kept wondering why the county didn’t provide a simple notice on its official sites that guided citizens — just as when government agencies advise people of snow closings.
By Friday, after double checking the official websites of Mercer County, the Mercer County Clerk, and the Mercer County Board of Elections and finding no new information, I decided to look on something I hadn’t anticipated as an official government communication source: social media.
There on the Mercer County Facebook page — something not obviously mentioned as a resource on the website — was some general information related to voting as well as a pertinent press release that announced that Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes was launching an investigation into the mess with election machines and the reporting.
It was then I decided to launch my own investigation and contacted Mercer County media representative Julia Willmot.
I noted my dismay that there seemed to be no useful information regarding what was happening and when voters could anticipate finding out the results.
I followed up with a request for an official county statement on its inability to communicate about the election during a time when American democracy and the election process were under stress.
After all, I noted, citizens were being told how much their votes mattered, but they are not getting information after they do.
Willmot forwarded my email to County Clerk Paula Sollami Covello, and then she and Willmot respectfully addressed my series of questions and considerations.
As I considered their responses, I also filtered them through my experience as former employee of the State of New Jersey and Middlesex County and began to see it as a potentially systemic institutional problem combined with a convolutedly bureaucratic approach.
For example, at one point the county clerk advised me to go to the Mercer County Clerk Facebook page, where I found the statement: “The Mercer County Board of Elections, a bi-partisan board of appointed commissioners by both political parties, met yesterday to scan ballots and the website was updated. My office will continue to update the website with vote tallies as they are counted.”
When someone posted the question, “What site? And where (sic) all votes combine from both the links you had prior.”
The county clerk answered, “On the Mercer County Clerk’s website you will find two links. You need to add them together for a complete tally. At the end, once all votes are tallied, we will combine the reports for certification and you can see a breakdown of votes by district.”
In addition to again not knowing that there was a social media site that had some election information, I found it odd that the social page was referring someone to the official page when an announcement could have been made on that site in the first place.
Additional communication with the county clerk brought up the fact that three separate offices are involved with election administration in Mercer County and a potential spot where the responsibility to communicate gets blurry and breaks down.
No matter how it happened, it had already become a messy situation and got even messier when reports starting coming in about lost ballots.
On Saturday night, November 12, Willmot sent me the following note: “I don’t disagree that there has been a lack of clarity surrounding the elections. That communication lapse is among the points the county executive wants corrected. There are three siloed election entities, each charged with a specific function. In this election cycle, Clerk Sollami Covello has stepped up to deliver accurate information, even if the function did not fall under her purview.
“We understand the public frustration; it mirrors internal frustration as well, which was addressed in the county executive’s declaration. There has been criticism of Clerk Sollami Covello, yet the clerk has been fully transparent with the information she has received and has taken on all inquiries, even those that went unanswered by other elections offices, namely the board and the superintendent. The Hughes Administration vows to work with leaders at the state and county levels to identify ways to professionalize the electoral process and improve the manner in which we protect the sacred right to vote.”
On Monday, November 14, the county clerk posted its first “Updated Information Regarding 2022 General Election” statement with links to the most updated information. The official websites for the county and the board of elections did the same.
Hopefully there are some lessons that have been learned.
But’s here are three to make sure. One, leaders need to embrace the organizational problems and deal with them in the most direct and clear manner — or it will get worse. Another is that democracy is an all-hands-on deck affair, especially for elected officials and government employees. And finally, journalists need to be ready to get into the mess.
Now, I’m going to see what happened in Trenton.
