Ocean County Ballot Count Inches Forward, 17K Still Be Tallied

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Ocean County election officials made progress on counting the votes from Tuesday's election, posting an additional 20,000 ballot results on Friday. But nearly 17,000 ballots remained to be counted, a county official said.

Unofficial tallies show 313,984 mail-in ballots counted so far, out of 330,890 mail-in ballots received as of Friday, Ocean County Clerk Scott A. Colabella said in an email.

Election workers have reduced the pile to about 16,900, but that number does not include mailed ballots that were postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day. Those ballots have continued to trickle in, and the deadline for mailed ballots to arrive is 8 p.m. on Nov. 10.

In addition, there are an unknown number of provisional ballots to be verified and counted; that count will not begin until after 8 p.m. Tuesday.

The 330,890 mail-in ballots returned is more than 76 percent of the reported 430,560 ballots mailed, according to an Asbury Park Press report. That's the highest percentage voter turn out in years in Ocean County.

The additional votes have maintained margins in some school board races that have remained close, including in Brick and Toms River. They also have kept the South Toms River council race very much undecided, with just a handful of votes separating the candidates seeking the two seats.

The additional votes trimmed about 3,000 from the lead Andy Kim has over David Richter in the race for New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District. Kim is leading by about 31,000 votes, but Burlington County is anticipated to be releasing additional results by the end of the day.

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