No new results in Perth Amboy until Friday

No new votes will be counted in the Perth Amboy runoff election until Friday as election officials await the final delivery of vote-by-mail ballots in races for mayor and city council.

Helmin Caba has a 565-vote lead over three-term Mayor Wilda Diaz, 3,952 to 3,387, with at least 800 votes still uncounted.  Six votes cast by machine by voters requiring special assistance are not yet included in the count.

Diaz has a difficult path to overtake Caba, a city councilman and the city’s Democratic municipal chairman.  She would need to win about 80% of the uncounted ballots in a race where Caba leads, 54%-46%.

Caba’s council running mates, Rose Morales (3,923) and Bienvenido “BJ” Torres (3,754) lead Bernadette Falcon-Lopez (3,211) and Junior Iglesia (3,280), who ran with Diaz.

Mail-in ballots postmarked by 8 PM Tuesday will be accepted if they arrive at the Middlesex County Board of Elections by close of business on Thursday.

It’s not immediately clear if ballots were delivered today.  The election office closed at 2 PM due to weather.

If the office remains closed on Thursday, the county has arranged for the U.S. Postal Service to hold the ballots for pickup on Friday, the New Jersey Globe has learned.

The total number of uncounted votes will remain unknown until those ballots are delivered.  Also undetermined is the number of outstanding cure letters.

The likely final counting of ballots is tentatively scheduled for December 22.

If Caba retains his lead, he’ll have a short runway for a transition before being sworn in on January 1.

Diaz led Caba in the November 3 non-partisan election by 421 votes, 4,946 to 4,525, a 33%-20% margin in a four-candidate race.