S2947 prohibits both offering and accepting any monetary or non-monetary compensation for individuals serving as mail-in ballot messengers or bearers. However, it allows certain facility employees or volunteers—such as those at hospitals, shelters, veteran homes, nursing homes, or nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations—to serve in these roles, as long as they receive no additional compensation beyond their typical duties.
The New Jersey State Senate passed S2947 on March 24, 2025 by a vote of 30 to 8. We have assigned pluses to the nays because, although the bill appears to promote election integrity, it deliberately avoids addressing the core problem. Nursing homes, special voting deputies, and certain nonprofit organizations were central to ballot-harvesting abuses during the 2020 election under the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic. By still allowing these same entities to collect and deliver ballots, the bill leaves the door open for the very schemes that undermined voter confidence before. Rather than securing elections, this legislation gives lawmakers a talking point to claim they acted on election integrity, while in reality deceiving their constituents and preserving avenues for abuse.
