More than 40,000 New Jersey Democrats voted ‘uncommitted.’ Here are the areas with the most protest votes.
Among New Jersey’s 21 counties, the highest share of “uncommitted” votes came in Passaic County in Northeast Jersey, where 18% of voters voted “uncommitted.”
New Jersey Democrats who voted “uncommitted” to protest President Joe Biden tended to live in North and central Jersey.
As of Wednesday afternoon, with 90% of the votes counted, the “uncommitted” vote had earned 41,461 votes, according to the Associated Press. That number amounted to almost 8% of the expected turnout. Advocates had hoped to reach 50,000 total votes. Biden won the Democratic primary with about 80% of the vote.
Among New Jersey’s 21 counties, the highest share of “uncommitted” votes came in Passaic County in Northeast Jersey, where 18% of voters opted for “uncommitted.” That was followed by roughly 14% of the vote going to “uncommitted” in both Hudson and Middlesex Counties.
Throughout South Jersey, the “uncommitted” movement got less than 5% of votes counted.
Ballots throughout most of New Jersey included an “uncommitted” option written alongside the slogan “Justice for Palestine. Permanent Ceasefire Now.” In parts of Ocean and Monmouth Counties, where the signature effort for “uncommitted” failed, organizers asked voters to simply write in “uncommitted.”
The effort was part of a nationwide “uncommitted” movement during the primary election as a protest against Biden’s support of Israel in its war in Gaza.
In Pennsylvania, voters could use the write-in option to vote “uncommitted.”
Because the state election code only requires counties to tally the number of write-in votes that were cast for people, it’s unclear exactly how many voters wrote in “uncommitted.” More than 60,000 voters in the Democratic primary used the write-in option.