Trenton-County clerks in all but 11 districts near New Jersey have counted their vote counts. The final number of mailed ballots is still declining, and there are still unannounced provisional ballots to be considered next week.

The latest unofficial results, including updates from eight counties on Friday, show that Governor Phil Murphy leads Republican challenger Jack Chatarelli by 62,333 votes, or 2.47%. Murphy's ratio is 50.8%, while Catarelli's ratio is 48.4%. Murphy's advantage increased by 5,709 votes, adding the ballot to the County Bureau of Statistics on Friday, which appears to be a mailed ballot.

The unofficial count reflects all constituencies in 18 counties, but excludes four counties in Burlington County, five counties in Camden County, and two counties in Mercer County. The Passaic County webpage seems to show that the 16 electoral districts are incomplete, but these are actually counts of mailed votes for each municipality, not electoral districts.

No county’s mailed vote count is complete, even if it is up-to-date, because as long as it is properly postmarked before 8pm on Tuesday and arrives before 8pm on Monday, November 8, these votes are still valid and counted Inside.

Today’s postal vote update reflects the ballots received as of Thursday, showing that 587,574 postal ballots have been marked as received or accepted, but there are still 368,890 requested ballots that have not yet returned to the county election office. Most votes will not be cast.

The mailed ballots included 33,142 votes received on Tuesday, 16,853 votes received on Wednesday, and 3,776 votes received on Thursday.

No county has begun to count provisional ballots, which are paper ballots that people cast at polling stations. If they have questions about their qualifications or are worried that someone may vote twice, once in person, and once through the required mailing ballot. delivering.

It is not clear how many provisional votes there are in total, as counties will not report this number to the state. For example, Camden County reports that it has at least 5,800. This is equivalent to about 1.5% of its registered voters. If the same ratio were applied across the state, it would be approximately 98,000 votes.

Counties will begin evaluating whether to accept provisional ballots on Tuesday, November 9. They can analyze these ballots and calculate valid ballots for the rest of next week, before the county canvassing committee meeting, to prove the results scheduled for Monday, November 11. 15.

In the 2017 governor election, 2,198,362 people voted. So far this year, the number of people participating in the vote is 2,534,971, and it is still increasing, an increase of 349,400, which is close to 16%.

Murphy actually got more votes this year than 2017. His total votes in at least 15 of the 21 counties have increased, but so far it has declined in two regions: Atlantic, Cumberland and Salem counties in South Jersey, and South Jersey Essex, Hudson, and Passeque counties are cities in northeastern New Jersey. (According to today’s update, Murphy’s total score in Cape May County now exceeds his 2017 performance.)

Ciattarelli received more than 318,500 more votes than the Republican candidate in 2017, the then lieutenant. Governor Kim Guadagno, an increase of more than 35%. This has increased in every county, including the peak of 66% in Gloucester County and the peak of more than 50% in Atlantic and Hudson Counties, including Mercer County, Somerset County, and Middle New Jersey in central New Jersey. Sykes and Hunterdon counties experienced the smallest gains.

The only time in New Jersey history where more people voted for governorship was in 1993. The gap between the two elections is now less than 6,500 voters, with 11 electoral districts, and more mailed ballots and all provisional ballots are still to be counted next week.

From a percentage point of view, the voter turnout does not seem to be as good as 39%. But this is partly because the number of people registering to vote has increased by 843,000 in four years, an increase of nearly 15%. This is because people who have recently participated in national politics are less interested in state elections. They are certainly eligible to vote, but they do not necessarily participate in New Jersey politics.

The state also made it easier to register to vote through online registration at the Office of the Motor Vehicle Commission and automatic opt-out of registration. But this model may be similar to the 1993 federal "motor vehicle voter" registration law, which tends to include people who may not necessarily appear at polling stations to participate in the voter list.

The New Jersey Globe reported on Tuesday that there were 574,441 inactive voters on the voter list, and the number of active voters was reduced to just over 6 million.

Turnout in 11 counties has increased from 2017: Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Pasek, Sussex And Warren.

So far, the voter turnout rate in 10 counties has fallen from 2017: The Atlantic, Bergen, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, Salem, Sa Merset and Union.

Michael Symons is the Director of the 101.5 State Assembly in New Jersey. Contact him at michael.symons@townsquaremedia.com.