[Conservative Brief] An investigation into why dozens of voting machines went down in New Jersey on Tuesday has begun amid a much tighter than expected gubernatorial race between Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy and GOP challenger and former New Jersey state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli.The Associated Press has already called the close contest for Murphy, though Ciattarelli's campaign has called that premature and "irresponsible."
But now there appears to have been an issue with as many as 56 voting machines, a glitch that is sure to conjure up thoughts regarding the post-2020 presidential election when surrogates for then-President Donald Trump made allegations of vote machine fraud that were never substantiated.
"Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin says he has a lot of work ahead of him after the votes from 56 districts were not counted Tuesday night in the county," News 12 reported.
"It's a mix but they are mostly in Newark, in East Orange, Irvington, Maplewood, Montclair, the majority of those 56 districts," says Durkin.
"Durkin says you can call it poll worker error," News 12 reported. "There will be an investigation as to why it happened. He asks New Jersey residents not to jump to conclusions as to why the 56 voting machines were shut down last night without being counted first."
"Those machines are at the polling places right now," Durkin noted further. "Those machines have to be brought back to the warehouse. A judge will issue an order for us to open those machines, retrieve the results and post those results."
However, the report stated, it did not look like that would happen on Wednesday.