early in-person voting started today and will run through this Sunday June 8th new Jerseys Attorney General Matt Platkin has issued updated guidance for local law enforcement that he says will ensure election integrity at all of the state's polling locations they'll be looking for any instances of voter intimidation improper electioneering election fraud or any other criminal activity the Attorney General's office has also posted information on its website for residents to understand all of their voting rights that includes all of the deadlines for in-person and mail-in ballots to be cast and even though this is a primary and lines likely won't be that long some voters were already out today taking advantage of their early voting options ted Goldberg caught up with some of them at locations in Mercer and Union counties to see how it's going and who they're casting a ballot for with one week to go until primary day Denise Pek and Kevin Condor are busy scooping up ballots in Mercer County honestly I just absolutely love the job it's great uh I love being part of the process and we learn something new every single day the trucks that pick up the ballots must have a registered Republican and a registered Democrat ensuring a balanced process for those who vote by mail senior citizens other people have the access to vote early it's it's great for them they want to get out and they want to drop their their ballot off some you know physically unable to get to a polling site so this is perfect for seniors a lot of people didn't even have an idea that that this existed and when I tell them that they're like surprised and like "Wow."

While primaries typically have low turnout election workers statewide expect a bump because of all the candidates trying to succeed Phil Murphy with the different you know people that are you know running for governor so I I'm I'm definitely predicting a higher turnout because of the volume of candidates on both the Democratic and Republican primary tickets we are just expecting there to be um more voter awareness and more anticipation and excitement over the election in each of the last four gubernatorial primaries fewer than one in five eligible voters actually voted in Union County Board of Elections Administrator Nicole Dorado says a selfie station could help encourage people to vote early we rolled out the selfie stations during the presidential primary election and again the general um they didn't take off last year as I was hoping they would so I'm hoping you know like everything else in our culture in our elections culture it takes a few years meanwhile Ashley Coning who leaves the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling expects New Jerseyians to largely ignore the primary one of their recent polls showed only a quarter of eligible voters knew the next election was in June voters and and citizens alike are just absolutely fatigued by politics and so this isn't something unique to New Jersey this is something we see in other contexts where when we've pulled it before New Jerseyians aren't aware of who their state senator or their uh assembly people are those who do vote might notice a change to ballots the county line is gone for the first time for both parties after a court decision last year sided with advocates who said it gave preferential treatment to certain candidates it's been replaced with an office block design we draw every position um out of like a basically out of a bin and and whoever wherever you land is where you're going to be placed on the ballot not a lot of questions have come in i have to say people have been pretty receptive to it tuesday was the first day of in-person early voting and folks on both sides of the aisle in Hamilton enjoyed the lack of long lines we never did early voting before this is our first time any thoughts i might do it all the time the issues that brought voters here run the gamut i haven't been happy with Murphy you allowed to say that yeah you can say whatever you want i vote strictly Republican so that's all I have to say that's they're the people that I believe in and that's who I am the taxes are high in New Jersey everything is high in New Jersey and I lived here all my life and I want to stay here and they make it hard to stay in New Jersey when I see a divide between the two parties it breaks my heart you have to vote you have to make sure people are aware that we want these parties to go together we want them to work for us work for this country and get rid of that divide our taxes are high in Mercer County you know I don't know if anybody could ever do anything about it but give it a shot as of Tuesday more than 270,000 mail-in ballots have been received statewide democratic ballots have outnumbered their GOP counterparts 3 to one but primary day is still a week out and there are a lot more ballots out there in Hamilton I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News