For a few hours on Oct. 22, it looked as if New Jersey might fence off its polling places from federal agents before Election Day. By the end of the day, the bill had cleared one hurdle and run into another.
On Thursday, the Assembly Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee approved the measure, A-5641, 4–2 along party lines, according to the New Jersey Monitor. The Senate version, S-4863, was expected to go straight to a floor vote, without a committee hearing, at that afternoon’s 2 p.m. voting session. It did not. Senate President Nicholas Scutari, a Union County Democrat and one of the bill’s Senate sponsors, said concerns raised within Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s office had knocked it off course.
“We’re going to work on amendments,” Mr. Scutari told reporters, according to the Monitor. “We anticipate bringing it up next voting session, but it just — I think perhaps people thought it might have been a little rushed and perhaps it might have not met constitutional muster, so we’re going to make sure.”
Sean Higgins, a spokesman for Ms. Sherrill, declined to comment to the Monitor.
What the bill does
The legislation, introduced only that week, is called the Election Integrity and Voter Protection Act by the New Jersey Globe. It would expand a 2022 law, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, that barred election officials from requesting police at polling places and limited state and local police presence to emergencies.
The new bill would add federal law enforcement and uniformed military service members to that ban, keeping them at least 100 feet from polling places and ballot drop boxes. It would also bar them from serving as election board members or poll watchers. Enforcement would fall to the state attorney general, through civil actions for injunctions and restraining orders in Superior Court.
The bill includes exceptions for people who vote or who live within 100 feet of a polling place. It would also allow the governor to send members of the New Jersey National Guard within that distance to keep access open to voters.
The sponsors and the argument
In the Assembly, the bill is sponsored by Assemblywomen Carmen Morales and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and Assemblyman Avi Schnall, the Ocean County Democrat who chairs the committee, according to the Globe. In the Senate, it is sponsored by Mr. Scutari and Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz.
“The focus of this bill [is] to allow and ensure that every eligible voter has the ability not to be scared, not to be intimidated,” Mr. Schnall said during the vote, as reported by the Globe. He cited mistrust of law enforcement in his home community of Lakewood.
According to the Monitor, supporters argued the bill is needed because federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and President Trump, have not ruled out sending federal agents to the polls.
“We know that it’s really not a good sign for democracy when you see armed men anywhere near polling sites, not in Myanmar, not in Bangladesh or the Philippines, and not in New Jersey,” said Amber Reed, co-executive director of AAPI New Jersey.
Erik Cruz Morales, director of democracy at the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, told the committee that ICE agents had appeared at polling places in some states during this year’s primaries. “When voters are unsure whether ICE or federal troops will be at the polls, many weigh that cost and decide it’s not worth the trouble,” he said. “That’s how voter suppression often works today, not through law that blocks the ballot but through enough doubt that people will stay home.”
The opposition
The committee’s two Republicans, Don Guardian of Atlantic City and Erik Simonsen of Cape May County, voted no. Mr. Simonsen offered an amendment to require voters to show identification at the polls. No one seconded it, so it died.
“I believe if this was part of it, the identification part, there would be less need for anyone to monitor these drop boxes and other places,” Mr. Simonsen said. Mr. Schnall said he did not second the amendment because voter ID deserved its own hearing.
The calendar problem
The election is Nov. 3. According to the Monitor, the Senate has no more voting sessions scheduled before then, though the full Assembly is set to meet Oct. 29. The Monitor called it unclear whether the bill would become law in time; the Globe said it appeared unlikely.
The history
New Jersey has been here before. In 1981, as the Monitor recounted, the Republican National Committee sent off-duty police and sheriff’s officers to polling places in largely nonwhite districts as part of a “Ballot Security Task Force.” Tom Kean Sr. beat Jim Florio for governor that year by 1,797 votes, and Mr. Florio blamed the task force in part. A resulting consent decree, in which the committee admitted no wrongdoing, subjected similar deployments to court review for decades. It lapsed in 2018.
That history is part of why supporters wanted the bill passed quickly. The Senate president’s comments suggest the other side of the problem: a state law aimed at federal officers raises constitutional questions, and Senate leaders now say they want the language right first.
Featured image: The New Jersey State House in Trenton. Photo by Ken Lund via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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