Trenton Statehouse | Mel Evans/AP Photo New Jersey Assembly set to make history with remote voting session

New Jersey lawmakers will make history Wednesday when members of the General Assembly will call into a conference line to cast their votes remotely on several bills related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kevin McArdle, a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, said the bills will be announced over the phone and that each member will be called on to respond to vote. The session is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.


It’s the first time the 80-member chamber won’t be physically gathering to cast votes in person, McArdle said.

That will make the vote tallying process longer than for in-person sessions, where members press buttons to cast their votes electronically. But the session should not last too long, as there are only five bills scheduled to be heard.

The unusual session comes after the both chambers of the 120-member state Legislature met in person last week and passed a bill, NJ A3850 (20R), that would allow it and other public bodies to cast votes electronically and remotely during periods of emergency.

Former Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, a Republican who left office in January, wrote in an op-ed that the law runs afoul of a clause in the state constitution that requires lawmakers to be “personally present” to pass bills.

New Jersey has relaxed in-person requirements before, but never so dramatically.

In 2014, the Assembly changed its rules on conducting quorum calls so members would no longer have to be there in person after NJ Advance Media reported members who were nowhere near Trenton were marked as present for a quorum so a constitutional amendment could be placed on their empty desks.

The bills up for consideration Monday include NJ A3903 (20R), which would allow notaries to perform their jobs using communications technology, and NJ A3900 (20R), which would ensure that temporary disability insurance and paid family leave covers people with communicable diseases who risk spreading them to others.