The fourth-place finisher in a field of nine candidates for three Mount Holly Township Council seats, Sayke Reilley, will be back in court this week, arguing that an old runoff law was never repealed, and that the top six candidates must face off again.
But the candidates who came out on top in the nonpartisan general election—Lew Brown, Chris Banks, and Rich DiFolco—say the runoff election was eliminated when they changed their municipal races from May to November.
The municipal solicitor maintains that Mount Holly is not required to hold runoffs. Reilley’s attorneys, Harry Clewell and Katherine Szabo, maintain that state law requires a municipality to either “affirmatively adopt or affirmatively abandon run-off elections through referendum.”
Mount Holly’s last runoff was in 1982.
Superior Court Judge John Harrington has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday.
Either way, the lawsuit points out a potentially fatal flaw in New Jersey’s election law: holding a December 3 runoff after a November 5 election is entirely unworkable.
Late-arriving vote-by-mail ballots, a November 16 deadline to cure technical deficiencies, a November 30 deadline to certify elections – and even a December 7 deadline to file an election contest — make it impossible to hold a runoff less than a month after the general election. Among other things, the deadline for mailing vote-by-mail ballots is 45 days before an election.
The runoff date was never changed after post-Election Day deadlines were extended.
Harrington has no leisure time on this matter. If he agrees that a runoff is necessary, he could order an expedited ballot draw and maybe even order the mail-in ballot period shortened, but holding an election before January 1 would be tough.
Since three of the five council seats are up for grabs this year, if the matter isn’t settled by January 1, the governing body will be without a quorum to conduct business. That would leave it up to Gov. Phil Murphy to appoint at least one council member to serve on an interim basis.
In 2016, Jersey City changed its elections from May to November. The ballot question was silent on runoffs, which remain in effect.
Similar scheduling issues could arise in Jersey City next year when the entire nine-member city council is up for election. This could force the city to eliminate runoffs or push the legislature to change the law.
On November 5, 9,741 voters came out in Mount Holly, and no candidate received a majority of votes.
Brown (1,440), Banks (1,439), and DiFolco (1,339) lead Reilley (1,168), Paul Kennedy (1,116), and Amanda Jacobsen (1,098). Three other candidates – Casey Carty (828), Bjana Swinson (656), and Jason Fajgier (635) – trail.