NJ's Undervoters: Thousands Say 'Bleh' To Choices For The 2015 Election

Are you among the thousands of “undervoters” who took to the polls on Tuesday in New Jersey?

When they’re scanning the results of the 2015 General Election for the winners and losers of this season’s political races, voters may come across an oft-neglected designation… an “undervote.”

But what does the term mean?

“An undervote occurs when the number of choices selected by a voter in an election contest is less than the maximum number allowed for that contest,” Ballotpedia.org explains. “An undervote also occurs when no vote is cast for a single choice contest.”

Common reasons for an undervote can include:

• Refusal to vote for an unopposed candidate
• Form of voter abstention or method of protest
• Voter mistakes or incorrectly marked ballots
• Poor ballot design

“It is possible that an undervote can occur when a voter simply does not see a contest, and then fails to vote for any candidate for that office,” the U.S. Election Assistance Commission states on its website.

“But it is also possible, in fact, more likely, that an undervote occurs through the voter’s choice to not cast a vote for that office,” the EAC continues. “This choice may be because they do not know anything about the candidates and do not want to make an uneducated choice, or they uniformly do not like any of the candidates. It is not proper to attribute all of the undervotes to errors in voting equipment, as some commentators have subscribed, but it is possible that a small number may be linked to faulty voting equipment.”

ESSEX COUNTY UNDERVOTES

While not every municipal county clerk’s office in New Jersey releases the amount of undervotes in their online election results, Essex County provided a running tally that ran in the thousands this year.

As of 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 4,

• A total of 12,406 undervotes were seen in the State Assembly races (within Essex County)
• 7,632 undervotes were seen in the race for Essex County Clerk
• 8,415 undervotes were seen in the race for Essex County Sheriff

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE UNDERVOTES?

According to Ballotpedia, unlike an overvote, a ballot will not be canceled or disqualified as the result of an undervote.

So yes… poll workers must actively record your vote for Donald Duck.

But most likely, it’s going into the undervote category.

“In many places, write-in votes are not a free-for-all, and elections boards don’t count or record a write-in vote if it’s not for an official write-in candidate in a given race,” MentalFloss.com states.

However, undervotes can have real consequences.

“Ballots with write-in votes usually have to be set aside and examined by an elections official so they can decipher the voter’s handwriting, determine their intent, and compare the vote to the list of official write-in candidates—all of which costs time, manpower and municipal money,” MentalFloss.com reports.

File photo via www.house.gov