For signature errors, the county board of elections must receive a voter's signature fix form by Saturday for the ballot to count. County results become official Wednesday. Candidates then get three days to ask a judge for a recount.
A New Jersey voter whose mail-in ballot was rejected over a missing or mismatched signature has until Saturday to fix it with a signed form, which can put the ballot into the final count.
State law calls that fix a "cure," and it gives voters 11 days after a general election to get the cure form to the county board. For the Nov. 3 election, the state Division of Elections' calendar puts that deadline at Saturday, Nov. 14.
A voter learns of the problem through a letter from the county board, by mail or email, that says the board rejected the ballot and explains why. The law gives the board 24 hours from its decision to send that letter. The board must also try a phone call if it has the voter's number.
The cure form comes inside that letter, with the voter's name already printed on it and directions for filling it out. A letter sent by mail also holds an envelope, with postage already paid, for mailing the form back.
Voters can return the form by email, by fax or in person. Mail works too, as long as the board has the form in hand by Saturday.
On the form, the voter states that they did send in the ballot. The form is not a sworn statement. For proof of identity, the voter writes down a New Jersey driver's license number or a Motor Vehicle Commission non-driver ID number.
A voter without either number can give the last four digits of a Social Security number instead. A voter with none of those can attach a copy of a document showing name and address.
A sample ballot qualifies, as does a utility or phone bill, a tax or rent receipt or an official document from a federal, state, county or town government. The voter then signs and dates the form.
When the form arrives on time and confirms who the voter is, the county counts the ballot, according to state law.
The cure form covers only signature errors. A law signed in January would let voters replace a ballot that has other problems, like a ballot left out of its inner envelope. But the Division of Elections told counties in October that the law would not apply to this election, because the state had not finished an update to its voter registration system that the law required.
When a mail-in ballot reaches the county board, its signature gets checked against the one on file, the division's tracker page says. State law rules out that kind of check for signature on the cure form, which relies on the ID number or document instead.
A voter's signature can shift over the years, and the one on file may simply be old, according to the division's guide for county election boards. Age and disability are among the things that can change how a person signs.
Voters who are not sure where their ballot stands can look it up on Track My Ballot, a free tool on the Division of Elections website. Each entry gives the date the county got the ballot and whether the county accepted or rejected it, with a code for the reason when the answer is a rejection.
A missing or mismatched signature is the most common reason for a rejection, the division's tracker page says. In the division's own ballot reports, a mismatch is coded SNM, for "Signature Does Not Match," and a missing signature CNS, for "Certificate Not Signed."
Using the tracker requires an online account, and signing up takes a voter ID number. The county election office can supply the voter ID and answer questions about a ballot, the division's page says. Counties, not the state, post the tracker's updates, each on its own timetable.
County results become official Wednesday
At noon on Wednesday, Nov. 18, each county's board of canvassers meets at their county courthouses. The canvassers check the results that the county clerk compiled from every election district, then certify them.
Until the canvassers certify, the counties' counts are unofficial. The daily reports that each county files with the Division of Elections list the mail ballots the county still has to process. Those reports carry the label "UNOFFICIAL" and a warning that their figures give no legal grounds for challenging a result.
Some local races are close in those unofficial counts. As of Friday afternoon, Nov. 13, Monmouth County's results had the count for the Manasquan Borough Council's second seat at 1,500 votes to 1,494.
Ocean County's results that same afternoon put the South Toms River mayoral count at 441 votes to 440.
A recount starts with a candidate's request to a judge
A candidate who wants a recount has three days from the canvassers' certification to ask for one. The request goes to a state Superior Court judge for that county, and the law's test is whether the candidate has "reason to believe" the count went wrong. On the state's calendar, the window for that petition closes Saturday, Nov. 21.
The three-day window came from a 2023 state law, which also set Saturday's cure deadline and Wednesday's certification date. Before that law, recount requests were due 17 days after Election Day.
The judge sets a deposit to cover the recount's cost, up to $25 for each election district the candidate asks to recount, according to state law.
The state, county or town that held the election pays for a district's recount when that recount changes the result. The government also pays when the gap between candidates in that district moves by more than 10 votes or more than 10 percent of the district's total vote, whichever is greater. Otherwise, the deposit covers the cost.
A recount that changes the winner ends with a new certificate of election. The judge revokes the original, and the county canvassers issue a fresh one to the top vote-getter. If the recount ends in a tie, the judge revokes the original certificate.
State law treats a tie as a vacancy
Under state law, a recount happens only when a candidate, or 10 voters on a ballot question, asks a judge for one. A tie does not change that. When two candidates finish with the same number of votes, state law treats the office as vacant. Either candidate can then file an election contest, a court case challenging the result.
In Oakland, a Bergen County borough, a council race that ended in a tie in the 2025 election went through a recount, a court case and a special election.
Oakland had two Borough Council seats on the Nov. 4, 2025, ballot. Bergen County's official results show two candidates with 2,516 votes each. A court-ordered recount in December 2025 left each with 2,515.
A Superior Court judge then scheduled a January 2026 trial over three disputed mail ballots. Under the law, the seat went to a special election on March 10, 2026, between the same two candidates. The county's official results gave the winner 1,955 votes to 790.
Oakland's race is settled. No result from this month's election is official until the county canvassers meet Wednesday.
A bill in Trenton would make recounts automatic in a tie. Sen. Joseph A. Lagana (D, 38th District) and Assemblyman Chris Tully (D, 38th) sponsor identical versions, S1371 and A3041.
The bill leaves out primaries and school elections, which already have a tie process under state law, the sponsors' statement notes. In every other race, a tie would bring a machine recount within 48 hours of the first results. If the tie held, a hand recount would come next, within 48 hours of the machine count.
If the hand count also ended tied, the bill calls for a special election once the county results are official, with only the tied candidates on the ballot. It would have to take place within 60 days of Election Day, and the state would cover the cost.
Both versions went to committee Jan. 13, 2026, and the Legislature's bill history shows no action since. The same sponsors filed the bill in 2022 and in 2024, and each two-year legislative session ended without action on it.
County clerks have until Nov. 23 to send official results to the state, and the state Board of Canvassers must certify statewide results by Dec. 3. The last day to file an election contest is Saturday, Dec. 5.
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Sources
Bergen County Clerk, "Bergen County 2025 November General," official district report, Oakland Council (Nov. 4, 2025)
Bergen County Clerk, "Bergen County 2026 March Special Elections," official district report, Oakland Council, election of March 10, 2026 (March 24, 2026)
Monmouth County, New Jersey, unofficial 2026 general election results, Borough Council, Manasquan Boro (accessed Nov. 13, 2026)
New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, "2026 General Election Timeline" (Jan. 9, 2026)
New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, "2026 Periodic Election Reporting," daily county reports, Monmouth County and Ocean County (Nov. 11, 2026)
New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, "Ballot Cast Report," 2021 primary and general elections, rejection code key
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