Tell Patch If You See Election Shenanigans In Middlesex County

The high-stakes 2020 election is less than a month away, but voting is already underway in some parts of the country, including New Jersey. Vote-by-mail ballots have now been sent to all active voters in the state. Those ballots were in the mail as of Monday.

In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy ordered everyone in the state to vote by mail, unless you have a proven disability. The governor said this was to reduce the spread of coronavirus at the polls.

Because of the surge in mail-in voting in Middlesex County and elsewhere, the nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica has launched its Electionland tip lines early this year. Patch has now joined the coalition of newsrooms participating in the Electionland project to discover problems that prevent eligible voters from voting.

Patch participated in the Electionland project in the 2016 election, working with ProPublica to bring you information on broken scanners and long lines at the polls in Brooklyn, the extension of voting hours in Durham County, North Carolina due to technical issues, voting improprieties in Texas, an election day shooting in Azusa, California, and much more.

ProPublica wants to hear about any problems that may prevent people from voting — for example, mail ballot delivery problems, voting location changes, long lines, registration problems, purged voter rolls, broken machines and voter intimidation.

Our journalists and those at other newsrooms taking part in the Electionland project will do what we can to document and verify what readers tell us about voting and Election Day experiences. One of the most important parts of the Electionland project is to hear directly from voters. There are several ways to do that:

• SMS: Text the word VOTE, VOTA (for Spanish) or 投票 (for Chinese) to 81380 (standard text message rates apply).
• WhatsApp: Send the word VOTE, VOTA (for Spanish) or 投票 (for Chinese) to 850-909-8683.
• Facebook Messenger: Go to m.me/electionland.
• Submit the form below.