The recent New Jersey elections produced some unexpected results. The governor’s race was much closer than expected. As of Nov. 19, the governor, although the first Democrat to be reelected since Gov. Brendan Byrne in 1977, prevailed by only 3 points, or 83,452 votes; and it appeared much closer on Election Day night and for a few days thereafter. And Sen. Steve Sweeney, who served the Third Senate District for 20 years, and as Senate President for 12 of those years, lost reelection by 2,212 votes, or 3 points (as of the last count we saw). The results in these two elections came as a shock to most political pundits and pollsters—because most believed both the governor and Sen. Sweeney would be reelected by wide margins.

We do not comment or speculate on the reasons for these results, but we note that both Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor, and Sen. Sweeney gave gracious concession remarks after waiting a reasonable period of time to see the impact of the provisional and mail-in ballots. And they did so without asking for time-consuming or costly recounts. Moreover, the 2021 elections, with alternative methods of voting designed to promote suffrage, by mail-in voting and in-person voting for a week before Election Day, in addition to traditional voting on Election Day with new types of voting machines, went extremely well and without major contest.

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