FERNANDEZ STATEMENT ON COUNTY COMMISSIONER RECOUNT

(Galloway, NJ ) It is evidence that the Atlantic County voters have been disenfranchised and our rights violated in many different ways. According to the Board of Election Chairwoman, Ms. Caterson, the scanner machine, didn’t count hundreds of ballots in the last November general election due only to “voter errors.” That is not accurate and putting the blame totally on Atlantic County voters is inappropriate.

It is the Board of Elections responsibility to ensure that the ballot scanner is working properly and that all legally voted ballots are counted. It should not require a Court Order to make the Board of Elections count hundreds of lawful votes. Atlantic County residents did their civic duty, taking their time to vote while a pandemic raged around them. Ms. Caterson should not be permitted to shift the responsibility. It is and remains wholly unacceptable to look the other way while trying to come up with a convenient
excuse to explain why lawfully voted ballots should be disregarded. Every vote counts and every vote matters. In a Democracy, how difficult is this to understand?

There is an election coming this upcoming November. The Board of Elections–and particularly Ms. Caterson–needs to stop blaming voters and start coming up with a plan to deal with lawfully voted ballots that the scanning machine fails to count. Mistakes of the past should not be disregarded in the future. A judge should not be required to force them to count lawful votes.

There are other issues with the recount which we hope to know more about in the upcoming days. There were 740 over votes and 21,263 undervotes in last November’s election. We are still waiting for answers, including how many ballots were actually reviewed by Ms. Caterson and the Board of Elections during the recount.

We deserve an explanation. We cannot allow our Atlantic County voters to be disenfranchised. If Ms. Caterson can’t provide the Atlantic County residents with a fair, transparent, and democratic election process and respect our voting rights, then Ms.

Caterson needs to resign and allow someone else to do the job the right way.

This is not about just winning an election. It is about protecting Atlantic County residents’ right to vote and protecting our Democracy.