The floor is yours, Tom. Take it away:
The day after it became widely known that all voting in the upcoming election in Belmar would be held at Borough Hall, the number of requests for Mail in Ballots more than doubled. Do you think this just happened, or is there a relationship between the two? I receive a daily email listing of those Belmar residents who have requested “vote by mail” ballots from the Monmouth County Election Board. We use this to help us in our efforts towards ensuring an honest election process. We have also been carefully monitoring all new voter registrations in Belmar, checking their addresses against a list of summer rental addresses. All of this has proven to be worthwhile in that we have been able to identify some areas of concern and have reported some questionable registrations to the County Board of Elections. It is their responsibility to investigate any areas of concern and take what steps they deem appropriate.
We will have to wait for a few more days to see if the pattern of increase for vote by mail requests will continue.
In my canvassing today several people expressed some displeasure and concern at not being able to return to their old polling place. Their reasons ranged from things like: tradition, and the friendly atmosphere at the old stations, to an extreme of feeling overly scrutinized when voting at borough hall. When asked what they meant, one person even commented: “You know, Big Brother is watching”.
Apparently we’re stuck with this new polling situation (for this year anyway), so we will have to make the best of it. One thing is for sure. YOU MUST GET OUT AND VOTE ON ELECTION DAY! In Belmar it’s more important this year than ever before. If you feel at all intimidated going to borough hall to vote, request a vote by mail application, there is still time to do this. Or go to the polls with someone you know. And when you’re there, please don’t allow yourself to be influenced by anything but your own conscience. If you need a ride to the polls, please contact us through the website: www.BetterBelmar.com. We have people who will pick you up and take you back home after you vote.
You can be sure that my party, the Republican Party, is going to have a number of people helping insure that your voting rights and the integrity of this election are protected. We have been working on this diligently for the past several months, and the decision to centrally locate all of the polling will actually make our job a little easier in some repects. We still don’t really like it, but we can and will deal with it.
Please support Republican candidates Tom Burke and David Schneck on Election Day, November 5th.
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