News12 New Jersey has reported, “A printing error led to hundreds of Republicans registered in Somerset County accidentally getting mail-in ballots for Democratic candidates.”

According to the report Somerset County Clerk Steve Peter said that “500-700 Republican voters in Bernardsville received Democratic ballots.”

The report goes on:

County Clerk Steve Peter says that there is no evidence of malicious intent. The ballots were printed by Verona-based Reliance Ballots. The company says the ballots got caught up in a plate change and that the correct ballots should be in voters’ mailboxes by Thursday.

Peter says that there is no evidence that any Republicans chose to fill out and send in the incorrect ballots and there is no indication that there have been more mix-ups elsewhere in the county.

Peter, a Democrat, according to a press release after he won election to County Clerk in November 2017 said, “I look forward to updating the County Clerk’s office to serve all the people of Somerset County with consistent, high-quality services,” said Peter. “I will work hard with my team to have a smooth transition and hit the ground running in January.”

“Consistent, high-quality services!” If sending Democratic ballots to 500-700 Republican voters is your idea of “consistent, high-quality services” then you’re doing an excellent job Mr. Peter.

Aside from the obvious, that the Somerset County Clerk failed miserably at providing his promised “consistent high-quality services,” what struck me about this story was that Governor Phil Murphy offered no comment about the “printing error” and instead, according to the report, said “that he will wait to decide on whether the primary election is a dry run for what the November presidential election will look like in New Jersey.”

News 12 quoted Murphy:

“We’ll certainly want to see how July 7 goes, but that guidance – there’s no need to do that now. We don’t do it now. The more information and history we have, particularly from a health perspective, the better a decision we’ll make,” Murphy said.

I’m not saying it is going to happen, but it sure does sound like Murphy is thinking about a mail-in November election.

Stay tuned. We’ll be watching!