Posted by
Essex County Politics · August 17, 2021 3:11 AM
·
1 reaction
COLLEEN O'DEA, SENIOR WRITER AND PROJECTS EDITOR | AUGUST 16, 2021
NJ Spotlight News
Using a ballot drop box
---
Close to three in 10 people who voted in the June primary used mail-in ballots, the most for any nonpresidential primary in New Jersey, according to data from the state Division of Elections.
The 2020 June primary was the only election in which a greater percentage of voters — 87.5% — used paper ballots, a number driven by the pandemic. To minimize the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Phil Murphy ordered county clerks to send a mail-in ballot to every active registered Democrat and Republican and urged people to use these to vote. Only a fraction of the usual number of polling locations was open for that election.
When voters automatically receive a ballot, many use them. For last November’s general election, county clerks sent ballots to more than 6 million registered voters and 93.5% either mailed them back or deposited them into one of more than 100 secure drop boxes throughout the state.
Read more
1 reaction
Share
Posted by
Essex County Politics · August 16, 2021 3:16 AM
·
1 reaction
MONSY ALVARADO, SOCIAL JUSTICE WRITER | AUGUST 16, 2021
NJ Spotlight News
Gov. Phil Murphy could have prevented the renewal of a contract to house immigration detainees at an Elizabeth facility, advocates said as they urged him to sign a law banning such deals in the state.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that it has extended its contract through August 2023 with CoreCivic, one of the country’s largest private prison companies, to house detainees. Currently, CoreCivic leases a building in an industrial section of Elizabeth where it houses the detainees for ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations in New Jersey. The current population at the facility is 134.
“Despite having legislation on Governor Murphy’s desk in June, failure to sign it into law has allowed ICE to extend its stay here,’’ the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice said in an online post Friday.
Read more
1 reaction
Share
Posted by
Essex County Politics · August 16, 2021 3:13 AM
·
1 reaction
By David Wildstein, August 13 2021
New Jersey Globe
Wawa Gas Station at Lanoka Harbor,
---
Gas tax revenues are down about $5 million for the previous 13 months, which could trigger an increase in New Jersey’s gas tax a month before the gubernatorial election.
That decision won’t be made for sure until state officials and an independent entity review the numbers. The tax will only increase if the total annual revenues fall short of $2 billion.
The state Department of the Treasury quietly announced collection figures on Friday.
Read more
1 reaction
Share
Posted by
Essex County Politics · August 14, 2021 11:49 AM
·
1 reaction
Workers removing a lead water line outside a home on 2nd Avenue in Newark as part of efforts to replace every single lead line in the city.Credit...
---
NEWARK — When a police siren abruptly woke up Christopher Daniels one morning this spring, he rushed outside. A police officer ordered him to move his car.
But then the officer explained why: Contractors were there to replace the lead pipe that carried water into his century-old Victorian home in the North Ward of Newark.
Mr. Daniels, whose 4-year-old grandson had tested for elevated levels of lead in his blood when he was younger, was relieved. “This could have been disastrous on so many levels,” he said. “It’s an hallelujah moment.’’
The work at Mr. Daniels’s home is part of a remarkable milestone in New Jersey’s largest city. Two years after Newark became the scene of one of the worst environmental disasters to strike an American city in decades, nearly all its 23,000 lead service lines, which had tainted the drinking water, have been replaced with copper pipes.
Read more
1 reaction
Share
Posted by
Essex County Politics · August 13, 2021 3:22 AM
·
1 reaction
By Joey Fox, August 12 2021
New Jersey Globe
Members of the New Jersey congressional delegation in the 116th Congress in Washington in 2019, left to right: Donald Norcross, Jeff Van Drew, Frank Pallone, Mikie Sherrill, Tom Malinowski, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Albio Sires, Bill Pascrell, Andy Kim and Donald Payne. Missing: Josh Gottheimer
---
With the release of municipal-level 2020 Census data today comes the prospect of congressional redistricting, critical for control of the House in 2022 and beyond. And while the layout of New Jersey’s 12 congressional districts won’t be known for several months, the data do show which of the current districts are underpopulated and overpopulated – a key factor in how they might be redrawn.
The most overpopulated district in the state is the 8th district (Sires), a majority-Hispanic district covering Elizabeth and parts of Newark and Jersey City, which has a population of approximately 821,000 – 47,000 higher than the 774,082 ideal population for a New Jersey congressional district.
The 9th (Pascrell) and 10th (Payne) districts, which similarly cover heavily urbanized areas in North Jersey, are overpopulated by around 18,000 and 42,000, respectively. Growth in cities like Jersey City and Hoboken, and to a lesser extent Newark, is driving the changes.
Read more
1 reaction
Share
