Recount: Not Over

(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Nov. 21, 2010)

SOUTH AMBOY — Despite a recount held late last week, the election of a new

Mayor is not over yet.

A request by Independent candidate Mary O’Connor for a recount of the Nov.

2 city election’s votes in her contest with Democratic City Council

President Fred Henry and two others — with only one vote separating her and Henry —

was approved last week by Superior Court Judge Philip Paley, sitting in New

Brunswick.

Two days later, the recount — which cost O’Connor $248 — was conducted by

the Middlesex County Board of Elections at its Edison voting-machine

warehouse, resulting in an identical outcome.

Henry again received 1,075 votes to 1,061 for O’Connor on the city’s nine

voting-machines, based in various public buildings throughout the one-squa

re-mile municipality, for a slender 14-vote lead. This was shaven to three

votes after O’Connor received 59 Mail-In Ballots (MIBs), formerly known as

“absentee votes,” to 48 for Henry.

O’Connor also received seven of the 12 provisional (challenged) ballots

counted by the Board to five for Henry, further reducing his margin to one

vote. As Board member Donald Katz read-off the names, staffers with count-sheets

called-out “Five” each time five votes were tallied.

On Election Night, the 2010 campaign for two at-large Council seats and one

Ward Council seat resulted in the Democratic Council nominees easily

defeating their opponents, newcomer Gross leading with 1,135 unofficial votes,

followed by incumbent Councilman Joseph Connors with 1,014, Republican nominee

Saverio Sagliocco with 982, Independent Eugene “Gene” Reagan with 751 and

GOP nominee David Longenhagen with 680. Recently-appointed First Ward

Councilman Donald Applegate, running unopposed, received 463 unofficial votes.

There were 22 provisional ballots cast, but only 12 of them were counted by

the Board. Eight ballots were voided by the staff, and the Board voted

unanimously to accept seven of the ballots challenged by O’Connor, rejecting

only one of them. Those seven went back into the mix with five unchallenged

ballots, and were pumped-through a counting machine, after the rest of the

county’s provisionals.

That left a mysterious 10th uncounted provisional ballot — cast by a woman

who voted for O’Connor, but which was not examined by the Board —

unaccounted-for.

That ballot — discovered by the Independent’s researchers before she filed

her request for a recount — was voided reportedly because no records were

found to show that the voter had registered in-time to vote on Nov. 2.

If that ballot had been counted, there would have been a tie between

O’Connor and Henry with 1,128 votes each, thereby forcing a special election on

Tuesday, Jan. 18, with the city’s voters asked to choose between the two tied

candidates to succeed Mayor John O’Leary, who decided in March not to seek

an unprecedented seventh four-year term as Chief Executive of the “Pleasant

Little City.”

Another MIB, also for O’Connor, was found in the Board’s office one week

after the election, and this was rejected unanimously by the four-member

Board because the voter did not comply with proper procedure.

At that emergency meeting, Administrator James Vokral explained that the

ballot was “put in the wrong pile” because the outer envelope in which it

was supposed-to be mailed was not used, but was replaced with a regular brown

envelope.

The voter placed his MIB inside the proper inner envelope and sealed it,

but failed to attach his signed certificate to the inner envelope.

“This ballot would have been voided even if it had been put in the proper

pile,” Vokral said.

O’Connor’s request to go further, if it is approved by Paley, would

include an examination of any heretofore uncounted MIBs and provisional ballots,

as well as challenges of specific individual ballots.

At-least one business-owner who lives in neighboring Sayreville and as many

as three police officers who live out-of-town may have participated in

South Amboy’s 2010 election, following a contentious campaign which was branded

by many observers as the city’s “dirtiest.”

In addition to the usual rash of reports of campaign-signs being torn-down

or put-up without authorization, this year’s local contest saw the

resurrection on a weekly basis of a bimonthly community newspaper which was defunct

for about 10 years, now unabashedly promoting the Democratic ticket; the

anonymous distribution of one flier depicting an O’Connor supporter in a Nazi

uniform, and another flier attacking O’Connor as a “terrorist,” and an alleged

“endorsement” of Mackiel’s candidacy by a non-existent “South Amboy Tea

Party.”

During Election Day itself, numerous complaints reportedly were made to the

Police Department, the Board of Elections and the state Attorney General’s

Office, which is believed to have sent an observer to the city to monitor

the voting.

One Council candidate was accused of “electioneering” at the Senior

Resource Center, S. Stevens Avenue, and was asked to leave; a photographer from an

out-of-county daily newspaper allegedly took random photos at a

polling-place and was escorted out, and eggs were said to have been thrown at an

O’Connor supporter’s car by Henry supporters, leading to a heated confrontation

involving the driver’s brother which police officers broke-up. There were

unconfirmed reports that off-duty police were called-out by Police Chief Darren

LaVigne to maintain order.

Because of suspected irregularities, FBI agents who raided the Board’s New

Brunswick headquarters and the County Clerk’s Office to investigate the June

8 Democratic primary election in the county seat may have expanded the scope

of their probe to other elections, including South Amboy.

The local race followed back-to-back municipal tax-increases of 38 percent

last year and 12 percent this year, plus an increase of over five percent in

school taxes approved in-between by the incumbent Council.

An Amendment to the Calendar Year 2010 Budget adopted by the Council is

expected to increase local taxes by another $722,576, on top of the $39 hike

previously-announced by the Administration and the Council, on a home assessed

at $266,000, the average in South Amboy, from the unamended spending plan.

Using the numbers provided with the CY 2010 Budget as introduced, the

amended Budget is expected to increase the municipal portion of taxes on the

average home by $268.

During the campaign, the challengers criticized the tax-hikes, pledging to

encourage more commercial tax-ratables to replace revenues now drawn from

residential property taxes, while the Democratic incumbents blamed the

tax-hikes on Republican Gov. Christopher Christie.