Recount On The Table In NJ Gov Race As Ciattarelli Has Yet To Concede

NEW JERSEY — The campaign of Gov. Phil Murphy is urging Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli to officially concede the governor's race — but Ciattarelli currently refuses to do so, pointing out that mail-in ballots can still arrive as late as 8 p.m. Monday.

In a Monday statement, Ciattarelli's top legal counsel Mark Sheridan also left the threat of a recount on the table, saying if the final vote margin is narrow enough, the Ciattarelli team may ask for one.

As of Monday afternoon, Murphy is currently ahead of Ciattarelli by just over 65,400 votes (a 2.59 percent margin). With 98 percent of the vote in, Murphy has 1,285,351 votes (50.9 percent of the votes) and Ciattarelli has 1,219,906 votes (48.3 percent), according to the AP/Politico vote tracker.

"The race is over. Assemblyman Ciattarelli is mathematically eliminated, and he must accept the results and concede the race," said Mollie Binotto, campaign manager of the Murphy re-election campaign. "His continuing failure to do so is an assault on the integrity of our elections."

"This was not a close race," she added. "It just seemed that way given the delayed reporting of votes on Tuesday night."

“Waiting an additional day or two for all votes to be counted should not be controversial,” countered Ciattarelli election lawyer Sheridan. “Let me be clear, no one on this team is alleging fraud or malfeasance, as we have not seen any credible evidence of that."

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As of Monday, all machine votes have been counted. The only remaining ballots to be counted are vote-by-mail ballots and provisional ballots.

It is currently unknown how many vote-by-mail ballots are still outstanding. There are still anywhere from 57,000 to 70,000 provisional ballots not yet counted.

Mail-in ballots are also still being received, as any mail-in ballots that voters dropped in drop boxes on Election Day can arrive as late as 8 p.m. on Monday. People who chose to vote by mail in this election have overwhelming favored Murphy — "and will continue to do so," his team predicted.

In fact, as mail-in votes trickled in over the past week, they have helped dramatically boost Murphy's margin of victory (while Ciattarelli was ahead in the machine votes on election night, Murphy has won 68 percent of the votes that have been counted since Wednesday morning).

"The Murphy campaign’s historic investment in its vote-by-mail program has paid off, with the Governor’s margin among vote-by-mail ballots exceeding his overall margins in every county," said Binotto.

But Ciattarelli's camp says that the Democrat-led push for mail-in voting "led to this disjointed and excruciatingly slow vote counting process," said Sheridan.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans actually agreed that they do not expect the mail-in and provisional ballots to end with Ciattarelli in the lead.

However, once all the mail-ins and provisionals are counted: "That count may reduce the margin for Governor Murphy enough to warrant a full recount," warned Sheridan. "We will make the decision to pursue a recount based on all of the facts, which includes that this is the first time New Jersey is conducting an election under the new law, using new technology and vote counting procedures.”

The GOP also took a shot at Murphy for such a close race in a state where there are a million more registered Democrats than Republicans, and pointed out eight Statehouse seats flipped from blue to red in the down-ballot "Red Wave" that swept New Jersey last week:

Six Assembly seats went from Democrat to Republican representatives, and two state Senate seats flipped to Republican, including the stunning take-out of Democratic Senate president Steve Sweeney by a truck driver who spent somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 on his campaign (not the $153 as was oft reported).

“We understand that Governor Murphy and his team are embarrassed that in a state where Joe Biden won by 16 points, they are leading by such a small margin,” said Ciattarelli strategist Chris Russell.

Ciattarelli's campaign even criticized Murphy for enacting a new law this year that allowed voters to vote by machine up to one week before the election. The Republican team said there were "technology errors" in the machine voting, which resulted in voters sending in their votes by mail.

"Based on information and belief, there is an unknown number of emergency ballots that are yet to be reported by County Clerks," Sheridan added.

2,800 mail-in ballots have been reported flagged for signatures not matching up, and those 2,800 votes have until Nov. 13 to be resolved.

However, Murphy's campaign maintains that the race is over.

"Murphy's current margin exceeds the total number of provisional ballots,"Binotto said. "Therefore, even in the impossible scenario that 100% of the provisional ballots were cast for Assemblyman Ciattarelli, Governor Murphy would still prevail."

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