On Tuesday (Jan. 13), New Jersey Governor Murphy delivered this year’s State of the State address, in which he said he will work on further criminal justice reform in the coming year and expand early voting in election years.
In previous years, the State of the State address has been held at the Statehouse in Springton (Trenton), usually with a lively gathering of bigwigs, applause, standing ovations, handshakes and pleasantries, but due to the epidemic, this year only a 30-minute pre-recorded video of Murphy in an empty theater was shown.
In his speech, Murphy summarized the accomplishments of the past year, including epidemic control, marijuana legalization and lower unemployment. Murphy vowed to lead New Jersey’s recovery from the epidemic and to be “stronger, fairer and more resilient than ever before. The Democratic governor also pledged to provide assistance to businesses struggling with the epidemic and to the long-troubled New Jersey Transit Authority (NJ Transit).
Murphy said he will continue criminal justice reform, and he will work to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes and property crimes. It is estimated that New Jersey may also adopt California’s approach, such as theft under a certain number, no longer prosecute sentencing. Murphy has also said he opposes legislation that would include minimum sentences for misconduct by government officials.
Murphy said New Jersey is on the verge of passing “innovative and groundbreaking” laws to reform “historically unjust practices” on drug crimes, presumably referring to the disproportionate number of blacks arrested for drug possession.
In his State of the State address last year, Murphy laid out plans to overhaul the ethics system, increase financial disclosure and expand transparency, but those plans went nowhere, NorthJersey.com reported, adding that shortly after last year’s epidemic, Murphy signed a law giving more freedom to public records custodians. In many cases, requests for disclosure of information under the law are often put on hold for weeks or even months.
In addition to this, Murphy established several advisory groups and task forces to guide the response to the outbreak control, but the rules of these groups and task forces are not transparent and the Murphy administration has refused to release relevant minutes of meetings to the news media.
Murphy also said New Jersey has enacted an automatic voter registration law and conducted a statewide mail-in ballot for the presidential election, and that it is time to “take the next step” and expand early voting to give more people the opportunity to vote.
I have worked with the Legislature to enact a true in-person early voting law and other measures to further open up our democracy,” Murphy said, “No matter your party affiliation, your vote is your voice, and when more of us are heard, this country is a better place. beautiful.”
State House Republican Leader Jon Bramnick (D-N.J.) said, “It was a very hollow speech. He didn’t address the difficulties that ordinary New Jerseyans are experiencing or the concerns that people have about the future.”
State Republican Party Chairman Michael Lavery (R) called the past year a “Murphy Meltdown,” blaming the governor’s response for exacerbating the challenges posed by the outbreak. Lavery said, “The governor has failed in his response to the CCP virus epidemic, our state is taxing and spending more than ever before, and Murphy’s massive debt plan will leave our children paying the bill.”
Separately, a report on New Jersey’s 2020 election done by a private citizen points out that, according to official data obtained from the state’s election website, New Jersey may have a worse mail-in ballot fraud problem than Pennsylvania, such as the fact that half of the state’s counties have more active voters than the adult citizen population; that a total of 18,414 dead people voted statewide, with the oldest being 1,709 years old The number of votes posted on the official website was 567,000, which was allegedly false.
The records of mailed ballots are also completely unreasonable, such as 2,308 ballots were collected the next day after being mailed; 2,409 ballots were collected the same day they were mailed; 1,026 ballots were even collected before being mailed; and 30,708 ballots were counted first and collected later. (To read the detailed report, please click here)
With such massive fraud in the 2020 mail-in ballots, Murphy’s claim to continue to expand early voting raises further concerns about the integrity of New Jersey’s elections.
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