The Hunterdon clerk's office responded by printing new envelopes and any ballots leaving her office after Oct. 7 have the "upgraded envelopes" that avoid the problem, Melfi said.
Some absentee ballots have been returned to voters, but postal officials and county clerks say they are resolving the problem. (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) The Hunterdon County Clerk's Office has taken steps to ensure that completed absentee ballots sent in by voters will not be returned to the senders, County Clerk Mary Melfi said Tuesday.
Clerks and postal officials in Hunterdon, Somerset and Monmouth counties have reported some ballots being returned to voters because of a flaw with the ballot envelopes that were sent out.
At some post offices, Melfi said, upgraded software has, in some cases, been reading the back of the envelope instead of the front, and returning the ballots to the senders instead of sending them to the county clerk.
The Hunterdon clerk's office "started hearing about it" on Sept. 27, she said.
The Hunterdon clerk's office responded by printing new envelopes and any ballots leaving her office after Oct. 7 have the "upgraded envelopes" that avoid the problem, Melfi said.
While the number of complaints has dropped, "there are still a few calls coming in now" from people who received their ballots earlier but didn't return them right away, Melfi said. "It's sporadic."
Some N.J. absentee ballots not delivered
She added that the problem has been exacerbated by "this crazy election" and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump saying "it's a fraud and it's rigged."
Comments by a few people posted in online news about the situation have reflected the candidate's charges, she said.
But, she added, when she has received calls about the situation, "Once I explained what happened, people calmed down."
Melfi said clerks and postal workers are "doing everything they can" to rectify the problem and make sure the absentee ballots are handled properly. Postal workers "take the election mail very seriously," she said.
"It's a statewide problem, but everybody's doing what they can to correct it," she said.
Melfi said she hasn't been keeping track of the exact number of complaints received in Hunterdon, so she can't give a specific number of absentee ballots that were returned.
Melfi pointed out that early voting is under way and voters can bring their absentee ballots to the county clerk's offices or show up at the clerk's office and vote during normal business hours. Anyone who mailed in a ballot can call the clerk's office to verify that it was recieved, she said.
In Somerset County, Clerk Brett Radi told mycentraljersey.com on Monday that of the thousands of ballots mailed out, between 50 and 100 ballots were returned to voters. Radi was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
George Flood, the U.S. Postal Service spokesman for North Jersey, acknowledged in an interview with NJ Advance Media on Monday that the problem was reported in Hunterdon County, where the pieces of mail were printed without identification marks that its machines scan for. The equipment then misread the return address when envelopes were run through, he said.
Flood said the postal service has been in close contact with the counties. Some mail processing centers have "tweaked" their equipment and county offices have reprinted their mailings, he said.