Ballots for the November election will start to be mailed out to New Jersey residents on Sept. 22. To help make voting easier for Bergen County voters, boxes will be installed around the county for people to drop off their ballots.

Bergen County election officials will install 18 boxes outside county and local buildings – all in an effort to make it easier to vote in an unprecedented election.

“I’ve been here 11 years. If we hit 30,000 in absentee ballots, that’s a big number. We’ll be processing 500,000 [this year],” says Bergen County Board of Elections Commissioner Richard Miller.

There were only about 12,000 ballots placed in six boxes throughout Bergen County for the July primary.

The ballot box is one way to vote. Voters can also mail in a ballot through the United States Postal Service, or they can take their ballot to a polling place on Election Day, or even go to a polling place to fill out a ballot. But voters will not be able to vote inside of a voting booth this year.

“I know a lot of people are adamant about wanting to vote in a machine. And, I get it. But you’re not going to be able to vote in the machines,” says Miller.

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Normally, ballots cast in Bergen County are collected and taken to the administration building in Hackensack. But this year it will be different. Because they're expecting as many as 500,000 ballots, more space is needed to do the counting. The ballots will be taken to Bergen Community College in Paramus instead. The board of elections will take over the gym and start counting ballots a week before the election.

Miller says that the counting will start early so that all results will be known by Election Night. But he says that there will not be any early tallies.

“No one is going to know who is winning in what towns,” he says.

Some have voiced concerns about placing a ballot in the mail and trusting the Post Office, so more may be turning to ballot boxes. Miller says that the ballot boxes will be secure. He says that they pick up the ballots, one Republican and one Democrat from the board go together along with a police officer.

Ballots must be placed in the ballot box by 8 p.m. on Election Night to be counted.