When criminals plan to steal something — whether jewels from the Louvre or a New Jersey election — they last thing they want around is a security camera.
That seems the likeliest explanation for this month’s decision by the Democratic-controlled Passaic County, NJ, Board of Elections to ban cameras for ballot storage areas in next month’s gubernatorial election.
And for its refusal to enforce sign-in and sign-out logs for people who access mail-in ballots.
State GOP Chairman Glenn Paulsen rightly calls this blatant preparation to steal the vote nothing short of “alarming.”
Why else, after all, would the board — whose chairman, John Currie, also happens to be head of the county’s Democratic Party — not want extra security measures that could make it harder to rig voting and boost public confidence that the election was fair?
Especially given Passaic’s history of voter irregularities.
Democrats must fear the race for governor between ex-Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R) and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) is simply too close to leave up to voters.
For good reason: Ciattarelli steadily whittled down Sherrill’s lead in the polls, with a Quantas Insights Poll this month putting him just 3.3 points behind — well within the margin of error.
And the Democratic National Committee has been desperately pouring in cash to save Sherrill, with another infusion last week to push the total past $3 million.
Heavily populated Passaic is a key swing county: President Donald Trump lost there by 16.6 percentage points in 2020, but won by three last year.
It could well decide Jersey’s next governor.
No wonder Garden State GOPers are begging the Justice Department to send monitors to oversee the election — or, at least, the vote-by-mail ballots.
Attorney General Pam Bondi: Your duty calls.
After the 2020 COVID election, when more than 90% of Jersey voters mailed in their ballots, prosecutors uncovered numerous stinks in Passaic.
They slapped ex-Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez, Councilman Michael Jackson and other officials with a host of charges, including election fraud, unauthorized ballot possession, forgery and tampering with public records.
Voters needs assurances that this year’s critical vote will be fair.
If Democrats can’t agree to that, why trust them at all?