New Jersey Republicans Request DOJ Send Election Monitors to Passaic County

The request comes after the county Board of Elections blocked a proposal for security cameras to monitor mail-in ballots.

A person drops their vote into the voting box at Kew Primary School in Melbourne, Australia, on May 3, 2025. Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reviewing a request by New Jersey Republicans asking the federal agency to send election monitors to Passaic County after the local Board of Elections blocked a proposal to install security cameras where ballots are stored and processed.

“The Justice Department is committed to upholding the integrity of our electoral system and is reviewing this request to ensure all elections remain free, fair, and transparent,” DOJ spokesperson Gates McGavick wrote in a statement to The Epoch Times on Oct. 22.

The New Jersey Republican State Committee accused the Passaic County Board of Elections, which consists of two Democrats and two Republicans, of blocking “the use of security cameras in ballot storage areas and refusing to require a sign-in/out log for anyone accessing mail-in ballots” during a public meeting on Oct. 17, according to a statement on X posted by New Jersey GOP Chairman Glenn Paulsen on Oct. 18.

Republicans’ request for the DOJ to send election monitors came days before early voting was scheduled to begin in the state, which faces a tight gubernatorial race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published on Oct. 15.

The New Jersey Republican State Committee’s attorney, Jason N. Sena, sent a letter to the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division on Oct. 20 to request it “dispatch monitors to the Passaic County Board of Elections to oversee the receipt and processing of vote-by-mail ballots.”

Sena cited a 2020 voter fraud investigation that involved city council members from Paterson, which is Passaic County’s largest city. Four individuals, including two running for city council, were charged with felonies for allegedly stealing mail-in ballots to rig the 2020 election.

“Passaic County has a long and sordid history of VBM [vote-by-mail] fraud with multiple indictments for ballot stuffing and falsifying VBM ballots in recent elections,” Sena stated in the letter, shared by the New Jersey Republican State Committee X account on Oct. 20. “Despite these indictments, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has proven incapable of prosecuting these matters.”

The state committee wrote on X: “Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and in Passaic County, that principle is once again being put to the test.

“Today the NJGOP formally demanded the Department of Justice’s Division of Civil Rights send monitors to oversee the vote-by-mail counting process conducted by the Passaic County Board of Elections. When officials resist transparency, it raises serious questions about what they are trying to hide.”

The Passaic County Board of Elections website states it oversees a “fair and open election process.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the Office of the Attorney General for the State of New Jersey, the Passaic County Board of Elections, and the New Jersey Democratic State Committee for comment.

New Jersey governor candidates on the ballot in Passaic County include Democrat Mikie Sherrill, Republican Jack Ciattarelli, Libertarian Party candidate Vic Kaplan, and Socialist Workers Party candidate Joanne Kuniansky, according to a sample ballot provided by the county on its website.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the gubernatorial candidates for comment.

Early voting for the general election is set from Oct. 25 through Nov. 2. The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is Oct. 28.

The general election in New Jersey is scheduled for Nov. 4.