Judge sets new Old Bridge election for March 22

Democrat Jill DeCaro and Republican Mark Razzoli will face-off in a do-over election on March 22 after a judge invalidated the November election because some voters received the wrong ballot.

DeCaro appeared to have unseated Razzoli, an incumbent, for the Ward 4 seat on November 2 by 11 votes, but Superior Court Judge Thomas Daniel McCloskey threw the election out last month after finding that election officials didn’t properly follow boundaries set in the 2011 ward redistricting map put voters from the odd numbered homes on one side of Cymbeline Drive in Ward 2, and the even numbered homes on the opposite side of Cymbeline Drive residing in the Ward 4.

McCloskey found that 27 registered voters that should have been in Ward 4 were erroneously placed in Ward 2 in the Statewide Voter Registration System maintained by the New Jersey Division of Elections.    He cleared Middlesex County Clerk Nancy Pinkin of any wrongdoing, agreeing the county counsel’s assessment that the mistake was made by the state

The council seat will remain vacant until the results of the March 22 election are certified sometime in April.  No one was sworn in to the seat at the reorganization meeting on Tuesday.

DeCaro is appealing the ruling and has McCloskey to stay his order.  The judge has set a hearing for January 21.

The new election date with input from Pinkin and the Board of Elections.

Voters in South Toms River will decide a March 15, 2022 do-over election of a November 2020 council contest that ended in a tie.