Dear Editor:
Recently the State Senate passed a law to allow cities such as Jersey City to move nonpartisan elections from May to November. What a wonderful idea. I would encourage our elected officials to immediately embrace this law.
Right now it seems that in Jersey City we are constantly having elections, the Board of Education in April, The Mayoral elections in May and possible run-off elections in June, Primary Elections in June, and November Elections for State and National offices. Not only does this get expensive to run all these elections, it is time consuming for all those public employees who are forced to help out those in power. It also creates a vacuum in Government because once you enter the election cycle or as I like to call it silly season, Government grinds to a stop from February to December and nothing gets done. It also creates voter fatigue which results in low voter turn out. People traditionally start to think about who to vote for after summer is over and not before.
In the Mayoral election of 2009 Mayor Healy won with approximately 16,000 votes of out approximately 30,000 votes cast. In a city of over 240,000 people to see only 30,000 people vote is both sad and disgraceful, and it only benefits those in power. That is why our Hudson County elected officials voted against this bill in Trenton. The combination of incumbents raising large amounts of money with lower voter turn out has been a disaster for Jersey City. Councilman Fulop has forced those in power to address the first problem with pay to play reform, now it is time for us to move the elections to November.
Jeff Kaplowitz Jersey City