Atlantic County may have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to rent a space large enough to accommodate all Board of Elections ballot processing workers, after failing to find free space in a school gym or other large facility.
It would cost about $40,000 to rent enough space for a maximum of about 60 workers to be protected by social distancing, said Freeholder John Risley, a Republican who is up for reelection in November.
The Board of Chosen Freeholders has called an emergency meeting for 4 p.m. Tuesday to consider leasing a 12,000-square-foot office in Hamilton Township for about six weeks.
A complication came up Wednesday afternoon, when county representatives and technicians from Verizon and Comcast were looking at the Hamilton Township space to see how quickly it could be fitted with internet and phone access, said Atlantic County Administrator Jerry DelRosso.
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“Comcast is still not sure when it can do (internet) installation,” DelRosso said. “And another issue is they want us to pay for two years. We said six months at the most.”
DelRosso said the county is still negotiating with Comcast on that point.
The election workers need to be able to securely access the online State Voter Registration System to process the ballots, officials have said.
Risley blamed the extra expense on Gov. Phil Murphy and his order making the Nov. 3 general election mostly vote-by-mail. That order will force Atlantic County alone to process and count an estimated 120,000-140,000 ballots.
“It’s insanity,” Risley said.
In addition to forcing most people to vote by mail from home, “he is encouraging people with disabilities to go to the polls and vote,” Risley said. “The whole thing is backward.”
Only people with disabilities will be allowed to use the voting machines at polling places. Everyone else must either vote by mail or fill out a paper provisional ballot at the polls.
Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson said Wednesday he had offered space in the old Criminal Courthouse in Mays Landing, in front of and above the offices of the elections board and other county offices.
“We would knock out a wall,” Levinson said, to make a larger space. “That’s no big deal. We can do that in-house.”
But some activities would still have to be done in separate rooms, he said.
Board of Elections Chairperson Lynn Caterson said the old courthouse does not meet the board’s needs, but she would have welcomed a gym at Atlantic Cape Community College or space in a county warehouse.
She said the county administration told her it could not empty a warehouse or encourage ACCC to provide the space.
“The total space (offered) does not come up with what we anticipate needing,” Caterson said of the old courthouse. “Secondly, we’d be talking about carrying ballots room to room, down hallways and up and down elevators.”
She said that would not be as secure as keeping everything in one space.
“There would be people coming in to the clerk’s office — the public — and coming into the surrogate’s office, and we’re running around with carts with ballots?”
Caterson said the rental cost will be reimbursed by federal CARES Act funding, so county taxpayers won’t have to pay for it out of the county budget.
“It’s not being reimbursed by Martians,” Levinson said. “It’s still the public paying for this.”
The Board of Elections will hold its own meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday, following the freeholder meeting, Caterson said.
If the space in Hamilton Township space is not able to work, DelRosso said the offer of free space in the old county courthouse is still there.
The meeting will be live streamed at atlantic-county.org/freeholders.
