This past Monday, John Curtis Jr. of Montclair was golfing with some friends. One buddy from Irvington noted he’d just received a letter from the state, informing him that he was not registered to vote. Another member of the golfing group, hailing from Newark, said he too had received an identical letter.
Curtis was shocked. He also had received the letter informing him that he wasn’t a registered voter. A Montclair resident for the past 30 years, and diligent in casting his votes since he’d become eligible several decades ago, Curtis received the letter from the Department of State’s Division of Elections.
Bearing the names of Gov. Jon S. Corzine, Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells — whose signature is on the letter — and Division of Elections Director Robert F. Giles, the letter stated:
"A review of our records indicates that you are currently not registered to vote and while visiting a Motor Vehicle Commission office (MVC) formerly DMV you may not have been offered the opportunity to register to vote."
"I don’t understand it. I’ve been registered to vote for years," Curtis told The Times.
After calling government officials, he was told that the letter informing him — and perhaps as many as 300,000 other registered voters — was sent in error.
Curtis acknowledged that, as an African-American citizen with a presidential election less than two months away, he was troubled by the erroneous information sent by the state, informing him that he was "currently not registered to vote."
"To see what African-Americans went through to gain the right to vote, I’m not going to go through some bureaucratic mess-up to lose my right to vote," Curtis said.
Included in the packet sent to Curtis, his golfing pals and many other citizens throughout New Jersey was a New Jersey Voter Registration Application and a postage-paid mailing envelope to the relevant county commissioner of registration.
Curtis’ voter registration form is addressed to Essex County Commissioner of Registration Carmine C. Casciano.
Casciano and his employees have received an unending series of telephone calls from registered voters throughout Essex County inquiring about the letter they have received.
Casciano said the error resulted from an effort by the Division of Elections and the MVC to work with the state Department of the Public Advocate in contacting citizens who applied for a driver’s license but hadn’t registered to vote.
The MVC’s computer database was matched with the Division of Elections’ database to discern the names of drivers who were not registered to vote. However, any discrepancies between the two databases prompted the New Jersey resident to be listed as unregistered.
"Unless it was a perfect match across the board, people got a letter," Casciano told The Times. "Nobody ever checked these things for common sense."
Citing one example, Casciano said his wife, Deborah, received a letter advising her that she wasn’t registered to vote.
"My wife received it on Saturday. Thirty-six years that we’re married, she hasn’t missed an election," said Casciano.
He noted that, in the MVC’s database, a clerk apparently had mistyped Deborah’s day of birth. While the year and month of her birth were correct, and her residential address was accurate, the wrong date placed her in the "not registered to vote" category.
State Sen. Nia Gill said that, after her Montclair office had received "lots of people calling, upset with the letter," and one of her legislative employees received a letter, she contacted Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells’ office.
Gill said she was told that residents were sent letters "if a middle initial is missing, a date of birth may not be clear" in the MVC’s records.
Gill said many Montclair residents are concerned about balloting.
She noted that dozens of Montclair residents ostensibly located within the town’s 4th Ward had been shifted into the 3rd Ward several years ago, but were never notified until shortly before the municipal election this past May. In the last minute, a Superior Court judge ruled on behalf of the affected residents, ruling that they could continue to vote in the 4th Ward.
Gill observed that some of New Jersey’s leading activists who are questioning the reliability and accuracy of electronic voting machines are residents of Montclair.
"People are concerned about not being disenfranchised because of computer glitches," Gill said. "My constituents are very uneasy about the integrity of the process."
Noting that the erroneous letters were mailed less than two months prior to a presidential election, an exasperated Casciano noted: "If this had happened at another time, it would be a problem. Now, it’s a crisis. It couldn’t happen at a worse time."
"Instead of helping people, it’s created anxieties," Casciano said of the state’s voter registration effort.
"Voters who were very concerned" have contacted her office this week, Montclair Municipal Clerk Linda Wanat said. "They were senior voters who had voted for many years who received the letter. A couple of residents gave calls, and one stopped in. We tried to reassure them and checked with the Statewide Voter Registration System.
"The SVRA is a computerized operation implemented through HAVA [Help America Vote Act]. This allows us to have access to any voter to determine if they were on the voter registration rolls," Wanat said.
Wanat advised all residents who are concerned about the validity of their voter registration status to visit the Municipal Clerk’s Office, located on the first floor of the Montclair Municipal Building, 205 Claremont Ave.
"The Municipal Clerk’s Office will be pleased to verify the registration of any voter in Montclair," Wanat said.
"Not one person was removed from the [voter] rolls because of this letter," Casciano stated with assurance.
"If you’ve been voting on a regular basis and haven’t moved, there are no concerns."
