the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Can someone please explain why Superior Court Judge Estela M. De La Cruz ordered Village Clerk Heather Mailander to add the One Village One Vote group’s petition to November’s ballot when the petition clearly didn’t include the number of registered voter signatures required by law (NJSA 19:60-1.1)?
As per NJSA 19:60-1.1, in order to change the date of Ridgewood Village’s annual school election by petition this year, the petition would have been required to have a minimum of 1,964 signatures (15% of the registered voter turnout in Ridgewood for the 2016 presidential election – 13,090). The One Village One Vote petition reportedly included only 570 signatures.
What are we missing here? Wouldn’t the judge have anticipated that her ruling might result in legal action by the Village government, the State of NJ, and/or an organized citizen group, further down the road? Anybody have an insight as to what might happen next?
https://nj.gov/state/dos-statutes-elections-19-60-63.shtml#ele_19_60_1
RIDGEWOOD MUNICIPAL QUESTION Village of Ridgewood (unofficial results )
YES 6,791
NO 4,690
Actually, the Judge directly addressed this in her detailed ruling:
“If there was any legal quandary about the number of votes necessary for the Petitioners’ intended referendum, it was incumbent on the Village Clerk, as part of her required duty, to determine the number of signatures required, given the Petition objectives. She had at her disposal the legal guidance of its Village legal counsel…The Clerk’s two categories describing the insufficiencies issued on August 5 are textually explicit, and do not indicate that there was an insufficient amount of signatures….Had that been a valid reason to reject the petition based on the insufficiency of the signatures, it should have been explicitly mentioned in the rejection of the first Petition.
Additionally, if it was the reason for the rejection, as the Village Clerk now argues in opposition to this application, it should have been cited in the deficiency email issued by the clerk on August 18, 2020….No certificate was filed, and no notification of the findings were communicated to the Petitioners. It appears that the Clerk punted her obligation to notify of reasons for a second rejection to the Village Council….The statute explicitly requires that she notify the Committee of Petitioners of her findings, which she did not do….
By never citing it as a deficiency, the Village Clerk had already concluded that the Petition contained a sufficient number of signatures….”
Lastly, I know most readers here do not like the outcome. That said, the voters have had their voice heard and want this measure to proceed by a wide margin. It is time to move on and respect the will of the voters.
Really surprised that this lost by such a big margin.
It’s done. Get over it.
It’s Fixed just like the REST of the election
Really surprised that this lost by such a big margin.
I’m not surprised.
Your fellow residents are highly educated idiots.
They have proven this time and time again
A significant number of people I spoke to (after the fact) didn’t even realize what they were voting for! If the ballot had stated plainly “you will give up your right to vote on the school budget”, these people would have voted NO!! The language was part of the “fix”.
Now, if we didn’t have the required number of signatures, then why not sue to have this remedied?
The law is the law. The judge is a dope. The law can’t just be ignored.
This judge allegedly has a history of overturned rulings. We’ll see. It ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings.
So if the village Clerk, who though either malice or ignorance (any opinions here?), allows an action, unlawful by definition as described in the opening paragraph of this article, to take place (NJSA 19:60-1.1), is there no redress because this action has been given a preemptive judicial blessing by a magistrate? Hmmm…
Simple math shows that the YEA votes (6,791), although sufficient to carry day in the 03Nov20 election, do not constitute a majority of the voters (13,090). Well played, motion supporters! Sounds like the ol’ Potomac two-step has come to 07450.
Where and when else in 07450 is this type of indiscretion allowed to proceed unchallenged (or may have previously proceeded unnoticed and therefore unchallenged?!), Are ”we, the People” being properly served by our local officials, Is my naiveté showing here?
This event reminds me of the TV show M.A.S.H, where Radar would bring a pile of papers to Colonel Blake to sign, and buried in that pile was a 3 day pass for Hawkeye and Trapper. The colonel would just sign them all in haste, to get them off his desk…
As I always say, “follow the money” – at the end of that trail will be the real reason for this event – In this case the real money is not the “chicken feed” that will be “saved” by not paying for an April or May election.
I didn’t know that Heather Mailander was a singer.
As the only statute cited on the original OVOV petition was from Title 40, governing the initiative petition process, the Village Clerk was only compelled to cite concerns within that law in her response. It was not her responsibility to address the requirements of the Title 19 statutes governing the moving of school elections until the petitioners chose to cite N.J.S.A. 19:60-1.1 on their amended petition. The judge chose to ignore that.
Also, the Village Clerk did inform OVOV in her certification of the deficiencies in their original petition of the necessity to have two distinct petitions for the two distinct actions sought to move the election dates of two distinct units of our local government. This requirement is cited in the Title 40 statute cited in their petition as well. The petitioners chose to ignore that, as did the judge.
The problem remaining is the ordinance itself, which by law, would be considered null and void as written. The judge was made aware of that and chose to ignore that as well. Her judgment did not stipulate what would happen to the faulty ordinance if it passed, only its placement on the ballot.
Regardless of the election results, we have to consider whether a precedent should be set to facilitate the circumvention of so much law. That would be a steep price to pay for something that could just as easily be placed on another ballot in conformance with the respective governing statutes. One has to wonder, as there was a statutory requirement for a public hearing on the proposed ordinance before it was placed on the ballot, how that important part of the process, which was circumvented here, would have affected the results of the election.
Whatever is done will affect years of local elections to come. I think it’s important to get it right. No doubt, the supporters of the OVOV petition would not like to see this happen with something they did not agree with. I would hope that we could all agree that the law applies to everyone and should be followed.
(UNOFFICIAL) Village of Ridgewood
Contest: Municipal Question – Village of Ridgewood, VOTE FOR 1
Municipal Question – Village of Ridgewood
(VOTE FOR 1)
Candidate Name Total Votes Percentage
YES 7,143 58.56%
NO 5,055 41.44%
59% yes, 41% no, and a clear majority of the 13,090 registered Village electorate. That huge voter turnout (over 90%) is exactly the reason you want to consolidate local elections in November instead of low turnout votes in the spring that favor fewer voices. The people have loudly and clearly spoken!
Over 7,140 yes votes, more than double what any of our current Council members won in municipal elections. And that right there is why November elections are more representative of the local electorate! Hopefully this will limit their number of self-serving opportunists in governance positions, and limit the risk of minority rule on a majority of local citizens going forward.