Judge says no to Mount Holly runoffs

A Superior Court Judge won’t require Mount Holly to hold a runoff election after finding that a referendum changing non-partisan township council elections from May to November didn’t include a requirement that candidates receive a majority of votes to win.

Sayke Reilley, who finished fourth in a field of nine candidates for three seats, claimed that the old runoff law – unused since 1982 – was never repealed.  But the apparent winners — Lew Brown, Chris Banks, and Rich DiFolco – argued that runoff elections were eliminated when they changed their municipal races because the referendum question was silent.

“I can see how people may think that they might have a runoff by virtue of the fact of the long history where they had it from 1954 to 2013,” said Judge Harrington in a rambling decision that followed a hearing that lasted parts of four days.  “I could see how they would believe that, but the time to deal with all of that was some time ago.’

Harrington said it was clear that the right to a runoff was “extinguished” when Mount Holly briefly experimented with partisan elections eleven years ago.

“Even though that was not appropriately worded, it was given the sanctity of correctness by the passage of time,” Harrington said of the referendum’s verbiage.

Lawyers for Mount Holly staunchly defended the validity of the referendum, a position that benefitted the incumbents and the township manager, who is, coincidentally, the son of one of the councilmen who gets to avoid the runoff.

Angelo Genova, one of Reilley’s attorneys, successfully sought a stay of Harrington’s ruling pending an appeal.

Brown (1,440), Banks (1,439), and DiFolco (1,339) defeated 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) – were at the end of the pack.