A 19-year-old college student is holding a razor-thin two-vote lead against an incumbent in race for Ridgefield Park township commissioner.
Askar H. Mirza leads Commissioner Mark Olson, 497-495 for one of the five seats up in today’s non-partisan municipal election.
There are about a dozen uncounted provisional ballots; it’s unclear how many VBM cure letters remain in the mix, or how many late-arriving vote-by-mail ballots will be counted.
Another challenger, Theodore Tabasco, who lost races in 2016 and 2020, is just sixteen votes behind Mirza.
Four incumbents won re-election: Adam McNeill was the top vote-getter with 624, followed by Mayor John Anlian (579), followed by Wanda Portoreeal (566), and William Gerken (563).
Mirza has worked for a Republican state senator and a Democratic assemblywoman.
Election Day came four days after the death of 82-year-old George Fosdick, who served on the Board of Commissioners for 36 years – 28 as mayor – before stepping down four years ago.