Judge seems ready to order Mount Holly runoff

Superior Court Judge John Harrington strongly hinted that he was ready to order a runoff election in Mount Holly, appearing convinced that the township’s old runoff law had never been repealed.

“That’s the logical thing that makes sense to me,” he said.

If Harrington remains in that direction – he’s scheduled another court hearing on Monday – election officials will need to hurry to schedule a runoff.

Runoffs were supposed to be held on December 3, but Mount Holly Township Clerk Sherry Marnell refused to schedule one, arguing that a change in local elections ended the runoff requirement last used in 1982.

Mount Holly approved a referendum in 2011 that switched from non-partisan municipal elections in May to November. In 2013, it flipped to partisan elections. In 2023, voters approved a return to non-partisan elections.

In a lawsuit filed last Thursday, Sayke Reilley, who finished fourth among nine candidates for three seats in the November 5 non-partisan general election, argued state law requires a municipality to either “affirmatively adopt or affirmatively abandon run-off elections through referendum.”

Harrington asked if Mount Holly “at any time after 1981 adopt an ordinance placing on the ballot the referendum question that is required?”

“When the Township of Mount Holly adopted the referendum to abandon non-partisan elections and switch to partisan elections, the township was no longer bound,” said Stephen Raymond, Marnell’s attorney.

But Harrington steadily maintained that voters were unaware they were giving up runoff elections and never approved of them.

“That’s an indirect way to do what you should have done directly,” said Harrington.  “If your intention was to eliminate runoffs and you said, ‘Well, I guess it’s assumed in the fact that we’re going partisan, that might have been incorrect.  So if it’s incorrect then, I don’t need anything else, because from my perspective, there’s still a runoff election.”

Deputy Attorney General Levi Klinger-Christiansen stated the obvious: “scheduling a run-off election for next Tuesday is plainly not feasible.”

None of the candidates received a majority of votes on November 5.

Incumbents Lew Brown (1,440), Chris Banks (1,439), and Rich DiFolco (1,339) lead Reilley (1,168) and his running mates, Paul Kennedy (1,116) and Amanda Jacobsen (1,098).  Three other candidates – Casey Carty (828), Bjana Swinson (656), and Jason Fajgier (635) – trail.

The runoff would pit Brown, Banks and DiFolco against Reilley, Kennedy and Jacobsen.

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.