17 days and counting until Hoboken VOTES.
People, you all know what this election means to our democracy: the restoration of checks and balances on a despot-luvin', corrupt, orange MORON who has NOT made America great again.
America will be great again-- if every registered voter goes to the polls on Tuesday, November 6 and votes to heal our broken democracy. That means you. And your neighbors, and everyone you know who is registered to vote.
As for Hoboken, you know what to do, people. We need the best, most capable, most dedicated, most visionary School Board trustees. See above. And don't be distracted by POLITICS. Do the right thing for the 2,000 kids in the Hoboken school district.
As for the run-off ballot referendum... GA does not support run-off elections for the reasons stated on my Ballot Guide. But, it will probably pass.
Which means candidates will have to work harder and raise even more money. Lotsa luck.
My two cents: Persons who sneer at Bhalla's 32% of the vote show Trumpian ignorance: Reform never exceeded 47% of the vote, and in 2017 we ran 2 Reform candidates. That was a stupid, selfish roll of the dice that almost elected the manifestly unfit, special-interest magnet Mike DeFusco. Well, Bhalla cleaned Giattino's clock, getting 68% of the Reform vote.
Had the weaker Reform candidate cared about the greater good of Hoboken and bowed out, the "32%" would have been 46-47% --leaving DeFusco in the dust.
Anyway, GA assumes that the ballot referendum passes thus Reform candidates will be forced into run-offs. Ironically, the return of run-offs may knock off a few of the Council members who brought them back. They've certainly made running their campaigns more expensive. Did any of them think of that?
Thanks for putting out this guide!
ReplyDeleteI'm a little curious why you don't think there's much hope for the ballot referendum. Although I suppose the question's language might explain that. I'm also even more curious how a question with such vague language was allowed to be placed on the ballot- but I'm guessing the Council majority wrote the language and the Mayor's office couldn't do anything about that.
I think that if people knew that this meant December run-offs, and not an instant run-off or some other system that would allow people to not have to vote more than once, then "no" would win. But with the referendum language as it is, it seems more like a question about the general concept of run-off elections, rather than asking people to say yes or no to any particular plan. People may like the general concept without preferring any currently-legal specific plan to effectuate run-offs over the current system. So this language is misleading, and I don't think a "yes" vote should be interpreted as an endorsement of any specific run-off plan.
I hope most people who vote remember or know what run-offs would actually mean.
You're welcome! I'll be flogging this ballot until November 6.
DeleteThat's a good point about the referendum language- I'll see where that came from. Right, if it said "You'll be returning to vote again in December" instead of do you agree with the concept, prob a very different result.
My pessimism comes from people in-the-know who are resigned (and preparing) for their return. Big mistake from the fake Reformers on the Council- I see at least 2 of them getting picked off on Nov 6. What a betrayal of all the hard work Reform's grassroots did in 2012 to eliminate them. It's Bhalla Derangement Syndrome. And not sure why they think whining about a well-liked mayor is winning constituents' hearts and minds. Nobody cares about process. Everybody cares about results. Whining about hurt feelings and how angry they are-- a lot of self-absorbed nonsense.
Anyway, hope my prediction is wrong. Just say "no" to run-offs, people!
The actual language of the question itself is dictated by the State Uniform Non Partisan Election Law. But ballot questions are usually accompanied by an interpretive statement that is intended to objectively explain what the choices mean in plainer English.
ReplyDeleteFrom the image it looks like the question is not accompanied by any interpretive statement. Is that correct? If so voters are left without important information like the fact that the runoff would occur 3 weeks after election day in early December.
If I recall correctly, there was an interpretive statement on the ballot in 2012 when the voters overwhelmingly decided to move the election from May to November and do away with the runoff.
It's odd (and disturbing) that there is none included this year. Since the Council voted to put this on the ballot it seems like it would have been their responsibility to ensure an objective interpretive statement was provided so that voters could make an informed decision.
Thank you for the info.
DeleteCorrect, there is no interpretive statement on this "Sample Ballot"- what you see is it.
I'll look for 2012's ballot referendum.
A fair interpretive statement would read something like this:
ReplyDelete"This amendment to the City Charter of Hoboken would add a runoff off election in December three weeks after Election Day in early December, if none of the Election Day Candidates receive a majority of the votes cast. This additional election would extend the election season and increase costs to candidates and taxpayers while ensuring that elected those elected to serve receive a majority of the votes in a two candidate election, rather than a plurality of the votes in a multi candidate election on Election Day in November."
It wouldn't have been hard to include (in fact it pretty unusual not to have an interpretive statement), and if the Council really wanted to "let the voters decide" it would have been included.
Without any explanation, I agree that this is likely to pass, though voters are IMHO being misled by the failure to provide any explanation of the ramfications.
The reason I voted to end runoff elections in Hoboken is the very same reason I will vote NO this time around. While many things in Hoboken have changed for the better some remain the same. The ability of a few old guard politicians to manipulate the vote in the runoff's is very real. Most voters vote on election day and much fewer go back to the voting booth the second time. If a candidate can get out their voters in a runoff with a greatly reduced total turnout they have a chance of getting into office even if they get less total votes but their percentages are higher.
ReplyDeleteThose who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
I posted this on an old story about runoffs, reposting here since it seems relevant to this discussion:
ReplyDeleteDo we have numbers for runoff turnout for past Hoboken elections? Someone in favor of bringing them back recently posted on Facebook "The last time Hoboken held a runoff election for Mayor in 2009, turnout actually increased from the general election. "
Is that true? I was always under the impression that turnout is less in the runoff but never seen any actual numbers, do we know for sure what happened in 2009? Do we have numbers for runoffs any other years?
If the person above just posted this on FB, that means this is a message point being pushed by those who what runoffs to come back. Is there any group counteracting that message? I fear we've been distracted and may find ourselves with runoffs back on the books.
It's not comparable. Back when Hoboken had runoffs, the elections were in May. Nobody turns out for local spring elections. People turn out for November elections, which is when non-local elections are happening.
DeleteYou can look at the recent Jersey City runoff elections for the downtown area's City Council seat. Nobody got more than 50% of the vote in the first round (on November's regular election day), so they had a December runoff. Turnout dropped dramatically. The candidate who got the most votes in November actually had more votes then than the winner of the December runoff- who was a different candidate. So the winner actually got less votes than the loser, despite it being a one-on-one rather than multi-candidate election.
Yep- there was a 40% drop in turnout in Jersey City's run-off. Ward E sure-to-win Rebecca Symes got creamed by James Solomon. Turnout will take a dive here, too. First week of December, holiday season, it's dark, cold. Easy to see why Councilpersons who attract PAC/Union/special interest $$$ and VBM harvests were anxious to bring back run-offs.
DeleteOh stop looking at such inconvenient facts. The entire purpose of this is to shank Ravi and make sure a vote buying OG candidate wins in the next mayoral race in a runoff (though I am sure the fake reformers aren't smart enough to understand that).
DeleteThe last time we had a May election with June runoff for mayor was 2009. 10,000 voted in May and 12,000 voted in the runoff. In the previous cycle in 2005, about 10,000 voted in both the may election and the June runoff.
DeleteSince then we have had a single November election and turnout has ranged from 14,000 to 16,000.
It's pretty obvious from the data that moving the election to November substantially increased turnout. There obviously is no Hoboken data for a December cycle but it's pretty obvious that at a minimum, we would lose the November turnout "bump" and turnout would drop at least 20%. Back down to the 10,000 - 12,000 we used to get in May/June.
Basically, having a December runoff defeats the purpose of moving the election to November, since the extra November voters won't participate in the real election which will be in December.
December might have even worse turnout than June. The days are shorter and it's much colder outside.
DeleteAgreed.
DeleteLike many of his constituents with dissenting, informed opinions, I've been illegally blocked by DeFusco from his Facebook page. However, he had a paid ad running there, promoting disinformation regarding runoff elections, with fancy, animated graphics, paid for by ...? Of course, everyone on the post for the most part, agrees with him. Now that the feds are looking into their illegal Vote By Mail harvesting techniques, they really want runoffs again, and will be pushing hard to make that happen.
ReplyDeleteCan Motormouth Mikey use his illegal campaign contributions for this effort?
He blocks people because he is a coward and would lose any debate on the various positions he takes that are even slightly controversial in town. Censorship is the tool of cowards.
DeleteMillion Dollar Mikey is probably using the money he collected trying to "solve" the midnight Bhalla terrorist flyer to pay for those brutal facebook ads...
DeleteDidn't he raise separate funds for his own private investigation? Wonder what they discovered. Maybe some inconvenient truths and that's why we haven't heard.
Delete$9K still on reserve, in case OJ finds the real killers: https://www.gofundme.com/JusticeForElectionTampering
DeleteWithout more information, most people find the idea of runoffs intuitively appealing so without a major costly communication effort about Hoboken's history this is likely to pass. Most voters don't even know that we're re-considering a decision made overwhelmingly by the voters only a few years ago.
ReplyDelete