New Jersey braces for big turnout

With a record number of registered New Jersey voters expected to choose a president, U.S. senator, 13 other members of Congress and a slew of county and local leaders today, election officials were bracing for the possibility of long lines at the polls and late election returns.

One of the most closely watched - and hotly contested - races driving voter interest is in the Third Congressional District, where candidates were making last-minute campaign stops yesterday.

That race, between Democratic State Sen. John Adler (D., Camden) and Medford Mayor Chris Myers, a Republican, has been especially tough, even by the standards of New Jersey politics, with aggressive campaigning, a half-dozen debates, and negative advertising based on the tiniest slivers of fact.

Adler started his day working the flu-shot line at the Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill and shook hands at supermarkets and WaWas around the district, ending the evening in Union Hall in Bordentown at a rally.

The campaign, in coordination with other Democratic campaigns, contacted 75,000 voters over the weekend either by phone or knocking on doors, said Mark Warren, Adler's campaign manager.

He was overcome, he said, by the mood in Adler's Mount Laurel office yesterday.

"There is so much enthusiasm on the Democratic side," he said. "People we've never seen before - not committee people, not insiders - are just walking in and we put them to work."

Myers started his day at a diner on Long Beach Island, worked his way through the district to his Mount Holly headquarters and made some calls before scooting out to a supermarket to shake hands.

Back at headquarters, his campaign manager Chris Russell said, "We're in a dead heat. That's what we feel and everyone in this office feels. This race is in our hands - that one extra phone call could make a difference."

Myers and Adler are fighting to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton (R., N.J.) for the seat that cuts from Cherry Hill through Burlington and Ocean Counties.

The election is a formality for most of the state's congressional delegation because their districts were drawn to favor Republicans or Democrats. However, two districts where demographics are changing - the Third and the Seventh have drawn national attention and money.

In the Seventh, in central New Jersey, former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Stender over the weekend; in September, President Bush flew into Colts Neck to raise money for her opponent, State Sen. Leonard Lance. Bush also raised money for Myers.

In the U.S. Senate race, Republican challenger Richard Zimmer started his day working a transit stop in Cranford yesterday with Lance. In the afternoon, he made calls to voters from Lance's campaign office.

Democratic incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who spent much of the campaign in Washington, worked a transit stop in Westfield with Stender. He appeared with her at a diner in Clark, and made stops in West Orange and attended a rally in Hoboken as well.

While politicians have been campaigning, election workers have been busy processing 631,512 newly registered New Jersey voters since Jan. 1.

Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells said yesterday that New Jersey will have a record 5,401,605 registered voters for this election.

Of the new voters: 134,158 are newly registered Democrats, 41,950 are Republicans, 454,711 chose to be unaffiliated and the rest registered under other political parties.

Absentee ballots have been at an all-time high and yesterday, voters were waiting on line to hand-deliver their ballots to the Camden County Board of Elections office in Pennsauken.

Voters can hand in absentee ballots until the polls close at 8 p.m. today.

Phyllis Pearl, Camden County's superintendent of elections, said voters who are at the polls by 8 p.m. will get to vote. Once the clock strikes 8, an election worker will stand behind the last person who was there at 8 p.m. and voters who show up after that will be turned away.

Like other counties around the state, Camden expects to break its record set in 1996 when 77 percent of its 261,180 voters came out. This year, there are 349,000 registered voters and projections of an even heavier turnout.

"We are looking at a tremendous turnout," said Pearl. "Every town's registration is up 10 to 11 percent and certain towns are significantly higher."

Registration grew by as much as 20 percent in largely African American areas such as Camden, Winslow, Pennsauken and Lindenwold.

Besides the marquee races, voters also choose freeholders in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester Counties, as well as a county clerk in a special election in Burlington County.

They also will vote for township officials and answer ballot questions. A few towns have questions over whether they should build new libraries or join a county system. Statewide, voters will be asked if they want approval rights on most borrowing by the state or independent agencies.

New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald Chen reminded voters yesterday that if their names are not on the voting rolls, they may still vote by getting a provisional ballot or going to the county court house and getting a court order to vote. Chen will have 55 lawyers on hand to help voters and the Attorney General's Office has organized over 500 lawyers to advise local election officials.

Chen also noted that in the last two years there have been 51 elections where the margin of victory was less than 1 percent, meaning only a handful of votes made the difference.

For those waiting in long lines today, Pearl advised: "Be patient."