In 2012, the pushback on Reform's grassroots ballot initiatives to move elections to November and eliminate runoffs was fierce.
The opposition to election reform was led by Frank Raia, and paid for through his Political Committee "Let the People Decide." That election cycle the City of Hoboken was bombarded with Raia's "Protect Democracy" posters, fliers and direct mail. Frank's people even designed a poster using Mayor Zimmer's colors- black, green and yellow- to trick voters into thinking the message came from the Team Zimmer (and not team Raia).
Now why did Frank Raia want to keep run-off elections and why did a (then-united) Reform try so hard to eliminate runoffs?
For the same reason why Mike DeFusco and Ruben Ramos (covertly) are trying so hard to bring them back.
Run-offs are the best Democracy money can buy.
A study by Fairvote.org of turnout in 171 runoff elections nationwide tells us what we already know: turnout drops off dramatically for runoffs, and the further apart they are from election day, the greater the drop-off.
A study by Fairvote.org of turnout in 171 runoff elections nationwide tells us what we already know: turnout drops off dramatically for runoffs, and the further apart they are from election day, the greater the drop-off.
A Hoboken run-off election falling on the 4th Tuesday after Election Day and in the middle of the Holiday Season, means the winner will get 51% of perhaps 40% decline in participation.
Of 171 regularly scheduled primary runoffs in U.S House and U.S. Senate from 1994 to 2012, all but six of them resulted in a turnout decrease between the initial primary and the runoff, meaning that 96.5% of runoff elections had fewer people voting in the second round than in the first. The average decline in turnout was 35.3% and the median decline was 33.2%. The longer the wait between the initial primary and the runoff, the higher the decrease in voter turnout between elections. Primary elections with a gap of more than thirty days had a median decline in voter participation of 48.1%, while those with a gap of twenty days or less had a median decline of 15.4%.
While Raia thought he could exploit low-turnout with a "vibrant" VBM harvest, Mike DeFusco and Ruben Ramos have set up infrastructure to pump dark money into Hoboken run-off elections called "New Jersey Democracy in Action." Coupled with his social media savvy, and sophisticated marketing through Facebook and Twitter, DeFusco has cleverly evaded financial disclosure. He has not filed this organization with ELEC; on paper, he does not even 'own' it. This alleged "social welfare" tax-exempt 501(c)4 organization called "New Jersey Democracy in Action" has to register with the IRS and has to show their primary purpose is "social welfare," not political advocacy. Have they? Not last time I checked.
So, who are they? What are they, really?
Four guys: one from Hackensack, one from Newark, one from Jersey City, and the one from Hoboken works with Councilman Ruben Ramos in Paterson. . Take a look:
Four guys: one from Hackensack, one from Newark, one from Jersey City, and the one from Hoboken works with Councilman Ruben Ramos in Paterson. . Take a look:
"NEW JERSEY DEMOCRACY IN ACTION INC."
This 2018 effort to steal Hoboken democracy is far more pernicious than Raia's 2012 'open secret.'
Raia's method was old school. Believe it or not, Raia filed the contributions and expenditures of his 2012 Let the People Decide campaign. They are in plain sight, though granted... he filed them late, and in the case of 2012, he filed them under his 2011 ELEC account.
Raia's ELEC reports show contributions from PACS and his own out-of pocket expenses. His November 26, 2012 ELEC shows a $2,000 payment to Raia soldier Lizaida Camis, and a $50 paid army of "campaign workers."
2012 RAIA "PROTECT DEMOCRACY" CAMPAIGN
2012 "LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE" PAID WORKERS
Gotta run, peeps. All GA has to say for now is please, vote "NO" on Municipal Question No. 1.
Keep faith with 2012's honest, Reform grassroots movement that eliminated run-offs, and not the ugly, demented 2018 "Resistance" mutation that wants to bring them back.
Props to Chris Adair who "fixed" this dark money mailer:
In 2012, more than 9,000 voters cast their ballots to eliminate the runoff. If a December runoff is brought back, it will almost certainly be with not much more than half that number voting in favor.
ReplyDeleteSo 5000 voters (at most - my over under is 4500) will overrule a decision made by 9,000 voters. Not exactly the process one would expect from anyone who cares about "majority rule."
I am hoping common sense wins the day and this loses. If it doesn't we will be going back to the bad old days of minority rule victories won by bought and paid for votes.
DeletePretty disgusting that former reformers think this is a good idea.
They're writing comments on HCV. Too well written to be from the little coterie at MSV, too dumb to be actual locals. For example they make the argument that the city has become too affluent for $50 to be attractive. You can't get much dumber than that. Paid operatives you can smell a mile off. That is, if you bother to ask yourself what that smell is. A lot of people who used to know better, don't seem to care.
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing that Jen, Tiff, Peter and Defusco can be beaten in their wards. If that's true then it should be possible to defeat this referendum. But that's not the vibe I'm hearing.
Not comparable. Incumbents will be forced to defend their ward seats against challengers in a robust campaign. Re: the ballot referendum, there hasn't been any "Vote No" campaign to counter it. Only a shady dark money campaign to vote "Yes" plus G-d knows what else happening off the radar. Some people like the idea, without considering issues like drop in turnout and special interest money. Unfortunately, I think it'll probably pass. Constituents of Jen, Peter and Tiffanie will be reminded of how they flipped on Reforms 2012 election reform.
DeleteI'm not a fan of the city council members in support of Vote Yes. But that doesn't mean runoff elections are innately bad. Frank Raia ran many times for mayor and lost each time despite there being runoff votes.
ReplyDeleteThe Hoboken mayoral races are always a crowded field of candidates. Winning by anything less than 51% is unacceptable. In a winner takes all, first past the post election runoffs are ideal. I prefer ranked choice voting, but I don't see that happening in Hoboken.
51% of the vote where far fewer vote, and the run-offs "winner" wins with fewer votes than the general election winner? I'm not making this up- look at the dropoff in turnout- this is a study of 171 elections nationwide.: http://archive3.fairvote.org/assets/Uploads/Federal-Primary-Election-Runoff-Turnout2013Aug2.pdf
Delete2017 General Total mayoral votes (machine, provisional, vbms)= 16,088
Bhalla: 5,041
DeFusco: 4,557
Hypothetical runoff between Bhalla and DeFusco
2017 Run-off Total mayoral votes with 40% reduced turnout: 9.,652
50% of 9,652 Total = 4,826 votes + 1 to WIN
FEWER VOTERS PICK THE WINNER. Bhalla would have won with fewer votes in the runoff than he won in the general with FEWER Hoboken voters participating.
I've got the answer to this problem, but it'll never happen: Hoboken has a mid-October non-partisan Primary with as many mayoral candidates as want to run. The 2 candidates with the most votes run on the first Tuesday in November, Election Day. The non-partisan primary and election day no more than 2 weeks apart.
This close proximity of the Primary to Election day would help turnout, and make races effectively the SAME length of time because the Primary would overlap the General, thus cheaper for candidates.
Ranked choice voting is not legal so it is a false choice you are presenting here.
DeleteAs for "winning for 51%", while conceptually that is nice, chances are any candidate who comes in 1st place during a general election and fails to get 51% will still get far more votes in a general election than the winning candidate will get in the runoff. In fact, I bet a candidate in 1st place who fails to get 51% will get more votes than the total number of people who vote in a runoff. Turnout will be abysmal in the runoffs - and the vote buyers will be able to cheat their way to victory. That is what supporting runoffs will open Hoboken up to - the cheaters will win.
Those who want a return to runoff elections don't want ranked choice voting, and if the referendum vote passes, that's the last we'll hear from them about how they'd "really prefer instant runoffs, but oh well, this is the system we have" bullshit.
DeleteFact:
DeleteLast fall, Ruben Ramos was foaming at the mouth to anyone who’d listen about how terrible it was that the runoff was gone, how it was an age-old Hoboken tradition callously discarded by interlopers who aren’t really part of the community in his view.
Make no mistake — the push to bring back the runoffs came from Ruben and his circuses (his traditional Old Guard circles, not his new coterie of hangers-on who’ll be cast aside soon enough once he’s done using them). If this passes, it will be all but assure Ruben will be the next mayor, which has been their plan all along.
Ignore the spin. Ignore the hired-gun commenters from Trenton. Ignore the revisionist history. This is being done to restore Old Guard dominance in local elections, and that’s exactly what will result. And Cunningham, Fisher, Giattino and their various sycophants should be shunned for enabling it to happen.
You're right. Funny thing is how hard Ruben is playing DeFusco. They'll both be at each others throats ahead of 2021, and the "various sycophants" you name will be so far back in our rear view mirror we'll barely remember their names.
DeleteFor me the biggest problem with runoffs isn't the influence of voter fraud in the form of paid for votes.
ReplyDeleteIt's candidate fraud in the form of back room wheeling and dealing in exchange for support in the runoff. In Hoboken, this has never involved a discussion of issues. It has been pure "I'll do for you if you do for me" in the form of what are basically cash equivalents.
A 2021 runoff will basically be a bidding war for the Russo family's support. And whoever wins that bidding war should be sent to jail, not to the Mayor's office.
Anyone who doesn’t recognize that Tiff, Jen and Peter will throw in with serial campaign finance law abusers Defusco and/or Ramos in a runoff just isn’t paying attention.
DeleteOr they just don't care that those folks have thrown their lot in w/ the serial campaign finance law abusers out of spite or just personal self interest.
DeleteBut hey, it is their right to be complete lying, cheating hypocrites if that is what they want to be and it is our right to vote for someone else next election cycle.
Jen, Tiffanie and Peter will certainly be supporting Ramos or DeFusco in any runoff - that's pretty obvious. Fortunately, they don't have many deliverables to deliver and by then at least some of them probably won't be on the Council so they will matter even less when the time comes.
DeleteKinda funny that you mention "delivering deliverables" cause I was think that Tiffanie Fisher's purchase of stickers for every voter in Hoboken is a much cheaper alternative to giving poinsettias (Mason) or Easter breads (Raia) to constituents. Mind you, I dont object to the stickers had she done it anonymously as a kind act in the pure spirit of democracy. But she's email blasting that she bought them, and am seeing it on facebook-- that the stickers are her gift. So, she wants voters to know who they came from. Like the big stickers in the Mason Family prayer books they donated at the synagogue. Does Brian Stack label his turkeys?
Deletethis isn't preschool. let her keep her stickers.
DeleteMason seriously put stickers in prayer books at the synagogue? I guess that's what you have to do when you need to prove you're not an average shiksa. No, you're far below average.
DeleteYes! I remember... at Jake's baby naming long ago, there was a giant sticker at the back of my prayer book. In honor of Shipley's bat mitzvah, I recall. It was very ornate... not your average "I voted" sticker. Inscribed with gold-colored ink.
DeleteDeFusco's latest emailed push-piece ad includes the statement:
ReplyDelete"Tomorrow, we have a chance to stop outside actors from dividing us and influencing Hoboken’s elections."
Outside actors? Like guys living in garden apartments in Hackensack, who organically coalesced with other ethnically diverse men, only one of whom is from Hoboken, for the good of our elections?
I didn't think it was possible, but he may even be more reviled than Mason ever was.
Councilman DeFusco do you mean outside actors like 71 year old, still double dipper North Bergen Mayor and State Senator Nick Sacco who just retired from his other job $260,000 with a hefty pension as a North Bergen school administrator ?
DeleteBy the time they figure out they've been duped by Ramos and Russo for pushing this runoff election bullshit, it will be too late. If Ramos becomes mayor, does he then get to collect a fourth pension?
ReplyDelete