Early Voting in New Jersey Ends at 6 P.M. Today: The Final Hours, Monday's 3 P.M. Deadline, and Tuesday's Rules
Nine days of early voting close tonight at 6 p.m. After that, the calendar is unforgiving: a mail ballot can still be requested in person until 3 p.m. Monday, drop boxes close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, and Election Day voting happens only at your assigned polling place, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The early window is down to its final hours. In-person early voting in New Jersey ends today, Sunday, November 1, at 6 p.m., according to the Division of Elections guidance read by this desk - the close of a nine-day period, October 24 through today, in which registered voters could cast a machine ballot at any designated early voting site in their county, no appointment needed. Sites opened this morning at 10 a.m.; when they close at 6, early voting is over, and there is no early voting on Monday.
What remains is a short, exact calendar. A voter who still wants a mail ballot can apply in person at the county clerk until 3 p.m. on Monday, November 2. On Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, polls are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Election Day voting happens at the voter's assigned polling place - not at an early site. Mail ballots follow their own rules to the end: a ballot in a county drop box or delivered to the county Board of Elections must arrive by 8 p.m. Tuesday; a mailed ballot must be postmarked by Election Day and received by the board within six days after the polls close, by Monday, November 9; and a mail ballot cannot be returned at an early voting site or at a polling place.
At stake on Tuesday are a U.S. Senate seat and all 12 of New Jersey's seats in the U.S. House, alongside county and local offices. The state's voters have already set an early-voting pace past 950,000 advance ballots in the figures reported on October 31 - today's final hours add the last of them. After 6 p.m., the choice is simple and final: Monday's clerk line for a mail ballot, or Tuesday's line at your own polling place.
