CERTIFIED ELECTION RESULTS PRODUCE LOCAL UPSET

By Walter Elliott

ESSEX – The Nov. 3 General and Nonpartisan Board of Education election results, as certified by Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin, produced one last upset.

Durkin’s Election Division employees – after a month of receiving, verifying and counting Vote By Mail Ballots, polling machine totals and provisional ballots until 1:30 p.m. Nov. 19 – found only one change among the four “Local Talk News” school board and nonpartisan township council races deemed too close to call as of Nov. 11.

That change was found in the contest for the Orange Board of Education’s third and final seat, where 79 votes made the difference in retaining one incumbent over another.

Results of the other “close shave” contests among the South Orange-Maplewood, Bloomfield and Belleville BOE and West Orange Township Council changed only in the certified vote tallies.

These races are among the 48 school board, municipal, county and federal elections that 58.06 percent of Essex County’s 606,151 registered voters had turned out to decide their representatives.

The 351,931 who filled out ballots or touched voting machine screens across all 22 Essex County municipalities made the largest turnout percentage for a Presidential year general election since 2008.

The Nov. 8, 2008 General Election saw 63.22 percent of 462,043 registered county voters, or 292,106, hit voting machine polling stations or the nearest mailboxes.

Turnout percentages, as provided by essexclerk.com, reached 57.17 percent in 2012 and 54.10 percent in 2016. There has been a steady increase of registered county voters from 462,043 in 2008.

Voter turnout increases may also be found from the Presidential and U.S Senate races down to Orange and other school board elections.

There were 16,359 votes cast or postmarked on or before Nov. 3 to choose three OBOE members from among eight candidates on that city’s ballot. This turnout is the highest so far since OBOE had been placed on the annual general election ballot in 2018.

4,341 votes were cast in the Nov. 5, 2019 election and 9,987 Nov. 6, 2018. Orange Public Schools administrators decided to hold annual November elections after 77 percent of registered city voters chose to convert the former mayor-appointed board to a voter-elected panel in 2017.

The Nov. 19 certified results have kept Fatimah Turner as top vote-getter. The second-year campaigner drew 3,064 votes or 18.739 percent of the votes.

First-time runner Samantha Crockett, who ran with Lenore Young, remains second-highest with 2,177 votes.

Current member Jeffrey Wingfield, in the end, received the third and last OBOE seat over fellow incumbent Tyrone Jon Tarver. The former board vice president received 2,177 votes or 79 votes more than the current OBOE President’s 2,064.

This contest is considered an upset in the sense that Tarver had a lead going into Nov. 11 before the clerk’s election division turned to verifying and counting provisional ballots.

While Tarver ran a solo campaign, Wingfield, Turner and OBOE panelist Ernest Lydell Carter ran together under three slogans – most prominently as the “Orange Board of Education Democratic Team.”

Being the “OBOE Democratic Team” ran counter to the spirit of boards of education elections being nonpartisan.

They first ran as “Good to Great,” which was printed on the ballot. Some of their banners included “Orange Kids Matter,” which approximated the “Our Kids Matter” slogan of Sharon Forde and Marsha Escalliere.

The certified results have kept Carter, at 1,767 votes sixth in the tallies. Forde remains fifth at 1,793.

Young, at 1,662, placed seventh. Escalliere rounded out the balloted field with 1,030.

In the WEST ORANGE COUNCIL races, H. William “Bill” Rutherford, at 8.953, attained the third and last seat over Monica Perkowski ‘s 8,595.

Newcomer Rutherford will join the Township Council dais with incumbent Michele Casalino and fellow rookie Tammy Williams Jan. 1. Casalino drew 9,798 votes and Williams 9.272.

Outgoing Councilman Jerry Guarino amassed 6,757. Susan Scarpa collected 6.603. Brent Scott completed the field at 4,884.

In the SOUTH ORANGE – MAPLEWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT races, Elissa Maplespina is posed to join Susan Lewis Bergin and Courtney Winkfield on the two-town panel. Maplespina mustered 8,713 votes over Deborah Engel’s 8,437.

Bergin and Winkfield, who ran together as a team, respectively garnered 11,321 and 11,085 votes. Melanine Finnern completed the field for the trio of three-year seats at 6,115.

SOMSD appointee Kamal Zubieta, for the record, ran unopposed for 12,328 votes. She will now complete the last two years of an unexpired term.

Although the voting order for the BELLEVILLE BOARD OF ELECTION TRUSTEES election remains unchanged, one may want to remember the top runner-up’s name.

Frank Velez III and Erica V. Jacho have been confirmed for the two BBOET seats. Velez, at 4,313, is the top vote-getter. Incumbent Velez received 3,895 votes – 411 more than Fernando A. Acevedo, Jr.’s 4,834 markers.

Acevedo, however, may be called up by Belleville Public Schools administrators to succeed Jacho, pending a December hearing in Verona Municipal Court.

Jacho, however, is to appear before Verona Judge John A. Paparazzo via Zoom as early as Dec. 2 over her Oct. 20-21 DWI arrest in Belleville. Judge Paparazzo has agreed to hear her case as a neutral party.

Jacho, depending on the Verona hearing, may consent to resigning her trusteeship. BPS then has the option to appoint Acevedo, as the third-placed candidate, with an eye towards a Nov. 2, 2021 special election.

Lissa Missaggia, for the record, placed fourth at 3,214. Incumbent Michael Sjeldon mustered 2,832. Yael Cavero-Isakowitz carried 846.

In the BLOOMFIELD BOE races, a newcomer unseated an incumbent for the third and final panel seat.

Kasey Dudley is to be sworn-in alongside Jessica Salinas and Nadeisha Greene Jan. 1. Dudley tallied 7,227 votes to Ellen Rogers’ 6,888. Salinas, at 8,531, and Greene, at 7,517, were ranked first and second in vote tallies. Thomas Heaney gathered 6,340 and Satenik Margaryan 5,500.

Candidates do have until 4 p.m. Dec. 5 to file a legal challenge in State Superior Court-Newark. That challenge, if granted, would start with a recount. The certifications should otherwise end Election 2020 and start the peaceful transfer of power on or around Jan. 1.

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