Burlington County Clerk Timothy Tyler has announced that ballots for four of the county’s five state legislative districts have been mailed to voters who have signed up to vote by mail. Those districts are the sixth, seventh, ninth, and twelfth legislative districts.
Ballots for the eighth district had been delayed by legal proceedings, but are now being mailed to voters.
“We want to put voters on notice that they will see some significant changes,” said Tyler. “First, the redistricting process has placed a number of municipalities in new districts. Second, voters will notice that the ballots themselves are smaller in size than in the past.”
As announced earlier this year, Moorestown has been moved from the eighth legislative district to the seventh.
“Suffice it to say, voters in these towns are likely to see some unfamiliar candidates at the top of their ballots,” said Tyler.
He said voters will also notice a change in the overall dimensions of the vote-by-mail ballot. Ballots have routinely been mailed in an 11 by 17 inch size and have often contained unused white space.
Recent efforts to comply with the requirements of the Federal MOVE Act have prompted the office to fit more information on smaller, easily faxed or e-mailed paper for overseas and military voters.
“This election, with a relatively small number of candidates and offices to appear on the ballot has afforded us the opportunity to use a standard 8 ½ by 11 inch paper squeezing more information into less space with minimal impacts on text sizes,” said Tyler. “We may not be able to do this in all elections depending on what must be on the ballot. Like every other office in the county, we are looking to save taxpayer dollars wherever we can.”
The office anticipates significant savings from both materials costs and the cost of handling the larger ballots require. Sample ballot sizes will not be impacted.
