For Immediate Release

Randolph, NJ – Conservative Republican candidate for Morris County Commissioner Anthony Somma today called for election reform aimed at simplifying and securing the electoral process in Morris County.

“The November 2022 General Election in Morris County was a disaster, with voting machine shortages and malfunctions that led to long lines and up to TWO HOUR wait times to vote,” Somma said. “This is totally unacceptable.”

Somma said the culprit in large measure was the ES&S voting machines recently purchased by the County Commissioners, which require a convoluted 11-step process for each voter to complete in order to cast his or her vote.

“It shouldn’t be any wonder why voters don’t trust our elections anymore. The whole process is a mess and this last election has made it even worse,” Somma said. “We have to fight at every level of government to make voting simple and secure for Morris County residents.”

Somma added the Commissioners failed to order enough machines and are now considering spending millions of dollars more of taxpayer funds on another 300-plus machines to ‘solve’ the problem.

“The total lack of attention to detail from Commissioner Selen and the other Commissioners who voted to buy these machines is astounding,” Somma said. “Turnout doesn’t change much cycle-to-cycle. Still, the county ended up with a more than 300-machine shortfall. How did they not do the basic math to figure this out?”

Somma said the ES&S machines which performed so poorly in Morris County towns like Chester, Roxbury, Mine Hill, and Rockaway are the same machines that were used in Monmouth County where the double counting of votes appears to have altered the outcome of a local school board election last year.

“We used to trust our elections. Now we can’t even get our results on election night,” Somma said. “It’s a disgrace and it’s a problem we must confront head-on.”

Somma is the only candidate for County Commissioner who has pledged to term limit himself, to not turn around and run for another office if elected this November, and to focus on critical issues like election integrity confronting Morris County.

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