With implications that could affect next year’s Jersey City mayoral election, a group of residents has formed a committee, “Keep Jersey City Elections Local,” opposing the upcoming November referendum asking voters if they want to move the 2017 municipal elections from the spring to the fall.
“There is a startling amount of misleading information about the scheme to move our local elections.” – Jacob Hudnut
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The committee has registered with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.
Co-founders Brian Bauman of Bergen-Lafayette and Jacob V. Hudnut of Downtown say the committee has support from residents of every ward and every neighborhood in Jersey City who are against moving Jersey City’s municipal elections from May to November.
“There is a startling amount of misleading information about the scheme to move our local elections,” Hudnut said. “It will be the mission of Keep Jersey City Elections Local to inform voters of the disadvantages that would be caused by passage of this referendum. Jersey City deserves to continue to have its own local election dedicated to the issues that affect us every day. Local elections in November would leave Jersey City competing for media attention in the days leading up to Election Day, with a ballot of potentially seventy candidates, and with a run-off smack-dab in the middle of the holiday rush.”
Bill Matsikoudis, who is raising money to run for mayor, is part of a lawsuit challenging the language of the referendum, claiming it encouraged voters to approve the move. Matsikoudis won a similar lawsuit in regards to the non-binding referendum last year in which the court ordered the language to be revised.
A do-over from last year
Critics of the change won a reprieve last year when the City Council scrapped a non-binding referendum approved by a low turnout of voters in November 2015.
The results showed voters sharply divided on the issue. The non-binding referendum was approved by a very narrow margin. The council decided to hold a new, binding referendum this year, hoping that the anticipated larger turnout for the presidential election would bring out more voters to weigh in on the question.
Councilmen Richard Boggiano and Michael Yun have raised concerns about the move, fearing that it would mean the elimination of a runoff election as was done in Hoboken.
Under the current form of government, Jersey City is required to have a runoff election if a candidate for municipal office fails to get more than 50 percent of the vote.
Boggiano opposed the move because even if the city retained runoff elections, these would spill over into the holiday season, and might well not get a good turnout.
Mayor Steven Fulop, who requested the council propose the binding referendum, originally said he would introduce a second referendum to eliminate the runoff elections. But the second referendum never materialized.
“If we do away with the runoff, we would be changing our form of government,” Yun said, questioning the logic as well as the negative impact a November election would have. He said currently Jersey City elections are non-partisan, meaning candidates run without party affiliation.
Yun says November election will confuse voters
By moving the election to November, the vote would be held at the same time as partisan elections, theoretically benefiting municipal candidates connected to a political party. Two years ago, the ballot line up had some Board of Education candidates aligned on party lines. While this was corrected last year, Yun and other believes it remains an issue.
Proponents such as Councilman Frank Gajewski say the change will allow more voters to take part in the municipal elections, noting that the May elections often have a low turn out.
But members of the committee opposing the change said this is not always the case, and that turn out for municipal elections mostly depends on the quality of the candidates running.
Yun argues that moving the election from May to November does a disservice to the voters, partly because it lessens the importance of the municipal election by holding it during a year when a governor’s race is being decided. More to the point, Yun said, municipal elections combined with school board elections as well as state and federal elections will create a nightmare ballot that will confuse voters.
The November date would put local races on the same ballot as elections for governor, state senate and assembly, freeholders, school board, and party committee elections.
While Councilwoman Candice Osborne said the ballot issue is a matter of design, Yun said some elections in the past have had as many as ten candidates for mayor, many of these also had full slates of council candidates.
“This means that as many as 70 names will be on the ballot just for the municipal election,” he said. If this happens to coincide with a large slate of candidates for the Board of Education, Yun says, voting machines may not be able to handle the volume, or may leave voters completely overwhelmed.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com