Advocates Demand Probe Into Missing Newark Voting Machines

More than a dozen advocate groups in New Jersey are calling on officials to investigate why several polling places in Newark opened without any voting machines during Tuesday's primary election. 

Advocates sent a letter to Essex County Superintendent of Elections Patty Spango on Friday calling for a "thorough investigation" into why voters showed up at the polls only to be told they had to come back later or fill out a back-up provisional ballot by hand.

Saafir Jenkins, 40, told WNYC that when he showed up at his polling location around 8:30 a.m., he was told the voting machines hadn't arrived yet. He opted to return after work.

"Unlike me, not everyone is going to have the opportunity to return and if they've been met with that type of obstacle, they may not have been able to cast their vote," he said earlier this week.

Advocates, led by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, also want the investigation to probe why election problems disproportionately happen in Newark—a majority Black and Latino city—and not in other places in the county.

"You don't see these issues in other parts of Essex County but this majority-Black city we keep seeing them so what are we doing to make sure voters of Newark don't encounter these issues election after election," said Henal Patel, who works with the Institute for Social Justice and monitored elections as part of the non-partisan New Jersey Election Protection Coalition. 

During last year's general election in November, some Newark polling sites opened late, frustrating residents who wanted to vote in person rather than send their ballots by mail in what was largely a vote-by-mail election due to the pandemic.

The letter comes amid a national movement in which voting rights advocates are fighting policies that would make voting more difficult for people of color. It also asks election officials to respond next week with a plan of action. The Essex County Superintendent of Elections office didn't return a message seeing comment.