Voting & Political Engagement

Related Resources

2024 Voting Deadlines, Dates, and Information

The New Jersey Primaries will be held on Tuesday, June 4th
- The deadline to register is Tuesday, May 14th
The New Jersey General Election will be held on Tuesday, November 4th
- The deadline to register to vote in the November election is Tuesday, October 14th.

If you have any questions or need help registering, please visit the New Jersey Voter Information Portal or contact us at ccec@ramapo.edu or stop by SC 213!

Civic Holidays

See the information below about the 2024 Civic Holidays. 2023 Civic Civic Holiday information coming soon!

Constitution Day – September 17th, 2024

Constitution Day is the federal observance that recognizes the adoption of the United States Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens. It is normally observed on September 17, the day in 1787 that delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the document in Philadelphia.

National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) – September 17th, 2024

National Voter Registration Day is a nonpartisan civic holiday celebrating our democracy. First observed in 2012, it has quickly gained momentum ever since. Nearly 4.7 million voters across the country have registered to vote on the holiday to date.

Celebrated every September, National Voter Registration Day involves volunteers and organizations from all over the country hitting the streets in a single day of coordinated field, technology, and media efforts. National Voter Registration Day seeks to create broad awareness of voter registration opportunities to reach tens of thousands of voters who may not register otherwise.

National Voter Education Week (NVEW) – October 7th-11th, 2024

NVED spotlights voter education to help all voters, especially new voters, with the tools they need to vote with confidence.

Vote Early Day – October 29th, 2024

Vote Early Day is a nonpartisan movement of media companies, businesses, nonprofits, election administrators, and creatives working to ensure all eligible citizens have the tools to vote early.

Make sure you have joined our Archway Page so you can see how RCNJ celebrates these important civic holidays!

Join our Archway here!

Partners and Recognition

All IN Campus Democracy Challenge

Ramapo College has been recognized by All IN since 2016. We have been recently recognized for our excellence in Student Voter Engagement with a 79% voting rate!

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge envisions a more engaged and inclusive democracy. Through institutional engagement, direct student engagement, and fostering a national higher education network, ALL IN strives for an electorate that mirrors our country’s makeup and in which college students are democratically engaged on an ongoing basis, during and between elections, and not just at the polls. We believe that a strong, vibrant, and more representative American democracy will result from the greater inclusion of informed college student voters. Check out our campus profile!

All In Campus Profile

The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE)

The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) offers colleges and universities an opportunity to learn their student registration and voting rates and, for interested campuses, a closer examination of their campus climate for political learning and engagement and correlations between specific student learning experiences and voting. Some quick statistics from the report…

Ramapo College’s voting rate is 77.1%.
- This is a 22.7% increase since 2016 and is 11% higher than averages at institutions across the country!
Our registration rate is 87%, this is a 16% increase since 2016!
Learn more by checking out the full NSLVE Report below!

Ramapo College’s 2020 NSLVE Report

The Voter Friendly Campus designation program

In March 2023, Ramapo College earned the Voter Friendly Campus Designation!

The Voter Friendly Campus designation program was started through a partnership between Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and NASPA’s NASPA LEAD Initiative in 2016. This partnership was formed as a tool to support higher education institutions fulfilling the requirements of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which necessitates that institutions distribute voter registration forms to their students. Due to the lack of instructions and guidance regarding this requirement, the Voter Friendly Campus designation process was developed to further the work of the Students Learn Students Vote coalition in creating more measurable and manageable guidelines for institutions to follow to create a more voter-friendly campus.

Campus Vote Project Press Release

Redistricting

Redistricting is the way we change the districts that determine who represents us.

Every member of the U.S. House of Representatives, most of our state legislators, and many of our local legislators in towns and counties are elected from districts. These districts divide states and the people who live there into geographical territories. Districts are occasionally the same size as the whole jurisdiction: members of a local school board, for example, may each be elected from an area with the same boundaries as the overall school district the board governs. Most of the time, though, district lines subdivide territory, so that there are several districts within one city or state and representatives for each separate district. When that happens, we need some way to decide where the lines will be drawn.

A Brief History of Redistricting

In the colonial era, many districts were defined by the borders of towns or counties or groups of towns and counties. The legislature was formed by assigning a certain number of representatives to each of these districts. So, for example, New York State’s 1777 Constitution assigned nine representatives to New York “city and county,” ten to Albany “city and county,” four to Queens County, two to Kings County, and so on. And the infamous Massachusetts gerrymander of 1812 was really just a particular configuration of Massachusetts towns and counties.

As the country’s population grew, it did not grow equally, and some towns and counties grew much larger than others. Some jurisdictions kept pace with changing population, shifting the number of representatives assigned to each district, or reconfiguring district lines; others did not. Sometimes, districts stayed the same despite population shifts because of an underlying philosophy: several state Senate systems were modeled after the federal Senate, with representation for counties as such rather than the population therein. Sometimes, districts stayed the same because of political advantage or neglect: from 1901 through 1961, the Tennessee legislature simply ignored a state constitutional requirement to redraw district lines. In either case, the result was that some districts grew much larger than others. By the 1960s, for example, Los Angeles County (the largest district in California) had 422 times as many people as California’s smallest district. And because each district in California’s state senate elected one Senator, each person in the smallest district enjoyed 422 times the Senate representation of each Los Angeles resident.

In a series of cases starting in the mid-1960s, the Supreme Court decided that this sort of population disparity violated the U.S. Constitution. It required a roughly equal population for each legislative district. This meant that district boundaries would have to be periodically readjusted, to account for new population information. So now, after the Census is conducted at the start of a new decade, district boundaries have to be redrawn.

This is the process we know as redistricting.

-From “What is redistricting?”

Moving Districts

Here are the municipalities by county that have been shifted from one congressional district to another:

Bergen

Moving from the 9th Congressional District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., to the 5th Congressional District, represented by Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer.

Cresskill

Englewood

Englewood Cliffs

Fort Lee

Leonia

Palisades Park

Ridgefield Park

Tenafly

Moving from 8th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Albio Sires, to the 9th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.

Fairview

Moving from the 5th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, to the 9th District, represented by Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.

Franklin Lakes

Lodi

Oakland

Rochelle Park

Burlington

Moving from the 2nd District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, to the 3rd District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim

Bass River

Washington Township

Camden

Moving from the 2nd District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, to the 1st District, represented by Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross

Waterford

Essex

Moving from the 7th District currently represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, to the 11th District, represented by Rep. Mikie Sherrill

Millburn

Moving from the 8th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Albio Sires, to the 11th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill

Belleville

Moving from the 10th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr., to the 11th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill

Bloomfield

Glen Ridge

Maplewood

South Orange

Moving from the 11th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill. to the 10th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Donald Payne Jr.

Caldwell

Essex Fells

Verona

Gloucester

Moving from the 1st District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross, to the 2nd District, represented by Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew

Greenwich

Logan

Moving from the 2nd District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, to the 1st District, represented by Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross

Mantua

Pitman

Mercer

Moving from the 4th District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Chris Smith, to the 3rd District, represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim

Hamilton

Robbinsville

Moving from the 12th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, to the 3rd District, represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim

East Windsor

Hightstown

Lawrence

Monmouth

Moving from the 4th District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Chris Smith, to the 3rd District, represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim

Allentown

Englishtown

Freehold Borough

Holmdel

Manalapan

Millstone

Upper Freehold

Moving from the 4th District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Chris Smith, to the 6th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.

Bradley Beach

Fair Haven

Little Silver

Neptune City

Neptune Township

Red Bank

Roosevelt

Rumson

Moving from the 6th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., to the 3rd District, represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim

Marlboro

Morris

Moving from the 7th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, to the 11th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill

Dover

Moving from the 11th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, to the 7th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

Mendham

Ocean

Moving from the 3rd District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, to the 4th District, represented by Republican Rep. Chris Smith.

Beachwood

Brick

Island Heights

Lavallette

Mantoloking

Ocean Gate

Pine Beach

Point Pleasant Borough

Seaside Heights

Seaside Park

South Toms River

Toms River

Moving from the 3rd District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, to the 2nd District, represented by Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew

Barnegat Township

Ocean Township

Stafford

Passaic

Moving from the 11th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, to the 5th District, represented by Rep. Josh Gottheimer

Bloomingdale

Wanaque

Moving from the 11th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, to the 9th District, represented by Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr.

North Haledon

Pompton Lakes

Somerset

Moving from the 7th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, to the 12th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman

Millstone

Montgomery

North Plainfield

Rocky Hill

Sussex

Moving from the 5th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, to the 7th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

Andover

Fredon

Green

Stillwater

Walpack

Moving from the 11th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, to the 7th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

Byram

Hopatcong

Ogdensburg

Sparta

Stanhope

Union

Moving from the 7th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, to the 10th District, represented by Rep. Donald Payne Jr.

Cranford

Garwood

Kenilworth

Moving from the 10th District, currently represented by Rep. Donald Payne Jr., to the 7th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

Rahway

Moving from the 12th District, currently represented by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, to the 7th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

Fanwood

Scotch Plains

Warren

Moving from the 5th District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, to the 7th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski

Allamuchy

Belvidere

Blairstown

Frelinghuysen

Hackettstown

Hardwick

Hope

Independence

Knowlton

Liberty

Mansfield

Oxford

Washington

Washington Township

White

The 16 municipalities are divided between two congressional districts.

Some neighborhoods may have been shifted from one district to another. Check our tracker above to see which district your residence is in.

Bergen

Maywood, Districts 5 and 9

Essex

Montclair, Districts 10 and 11

Newark, Districts 8 and 10

Gloucester

East Greenwich, Districts 1 and 2

Hudson

Jersey City, Districts 8 and 10

Kearny, Districts 8 and 9

Middlesex

Old Bridge, Districts 6 and 12

Monmouth

Freehold Township, Districts 3 and 4

Middletown, Districts 4 and 6

Morris

Mendham Township, Districts 7 and 11

Ocean

Berkeley Township, Districts 2 and 4

Lacey Township, Districts 2 and 4

Passaic

Wayne, Districts 9 and 11

Somerset

Bridgewater, Districts 7 and 12

Hillsborough, Districts 7 and 12

Union

Linden, Districts 7 and 10