After see-sawing back and forth in one of the closest elections ever in West Windsor, the race for three Township Council seats seemed to have come down to a narrow decision in the late hours of election night, November 8: George Borek, the incumbent, was narrowly ahead of Bryan Maher, the challenger from the opposing slate, with just eight votes separating them. Borek’s running mate, Kristina Samonte, was 13 votes ahead of the third member of her slate, Lindsay Diehl, for the final Council seat.
That result, which included 260 absentee ballots that were added to the mix after 10 p.m., appeared to assure the Moving Forward team and its political allies, Council President Kamal Khanna and Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, with at least a 3-2 majority in council votes. Maher, a member of the Strong Leaders sales, would presumably side with incumbent Linda Geevers on some issues, particularly the proposed transit village and train station redevelopment.
The Moving Forward team voiced support for InterCap’s plans for a mixed used residential and retail development on Washington Road next to the train station. The Strong Leaders were concerned about possible adverse tax consequences of the InterCap project and preferred to concentrate township energy on improvements on the other side of the train tracks, including the former Acme shopping center.
That was the result as the Moving Forward election night party broke up at the Millwood Avenue home of Khanna and as the Strong Leaders slate, including Maher, Gary Zohn, and Lauren Kohn, wrapped up its activities at the Geevers home.
On Wednesday morning, the totals looked like this:
George Borek: 2,060
Bryan Maher: 2,052
Kristina Samonte: 2,043
Lindsay Diehl: 2,030
Gary Zohn: 1,974
Lauren Kohn: 1,708
Greg Harris: 300
But that result turned out not to be the last word. On Wednesday came news of 34 “provisional ballots” turned over to Mercer County election officials to resolve questions about each voter’s eligibility. Reasons for being filed as provisional include the following: the voter’s name does not appear on the electoral roll for the given precinct; the voter’s registration contains inaccurate or out-dated information such as the wrong address or a misspelled name; or the voter’s ballot has already been recorded.
With just 13 votes separating Diehl and Samonte, it was conceivable that their order of finish could be reversed by the determination of the county. That Diehl and Samonte could both move ahead of Maher to remove him from a Council seat seemed virtually impossible. But when contacted Wednesday morning, Maher said he would wait until the final results are in to speak on the outcome and where he will go from here.
And when would those results be final? On Thursday, November 10, Township Clerk Sharon Young said because municipal and county offices would be closed for Veterans Day, official results will not be ready until sometime next week.
On Tuesday night preliminary results indicated that Maher was the top vote-getter, just ahead of Borek. Of greater consequence, and equally tight, was the margin between Samonte and Diehl. “Lindsay and I campaigned together and walked around and talked to residents,” said Samonte, when asked to comment on the slight difference in their vote totals. “I don’t even know so much if
it’s differences so much as it’s similarities.”
Added Samonte, speaking on the assumption that the remaining 34 ballots will not change the outcome: “I just wish Lindsay could join us on Council because she’s a fantastic person. I’m looking forward to seeing her work in other ways in the community. Everyone has something to add and running in this election was a real learning experience for all. I definitely think that people like Lindsay who were not elected would have a great opportunity if they ran another time.”
At 10:30 the Strong Leaders team gathered with Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner, and Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, and Council President Khanna to address their supporters.
“In any case we will need three out of five votes to get things approved, and it appears we have that,” Khanna said. Speaking as a candidate Borek said he felt humbled. “I knew that a lot of residents have liked what I’ve done in the past couple of years serving on Council. It wasn’t a concern — we ran a clean campaign and we had worked hard,” he said.
Borek had a scheduling dilemma at the end of the campaign. His wife had flown to Ireland for a business meeting on Saturday and Borek was set to meet her, taking a flight on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. He was eager to go with her but he insisted on being in town for election night.
Borek added that the final three or four days helped boost his campaign down the stretch. Since Friday, November 4, at 8:45 a.m. Borek said he walked more miles in West Windsor than he had ever done before. That final push brought him in front of residents and opponents alike.
“Today we saw Bryan Maher and Gary Zohn at the train station and we said we’re glad this is coming to an end. And at the end of the day we recognize that we’re all West Windsor residents. We’re humbled that we had such people willing to run for office,” Borek said.
The voter turnout in West Windsor was low for this election as a figure of around 4,000 voters was estimated. “It shows that people are engaged,” Borek said, “although I was hoping that more citizens would have voted. We moved the election from May not only to save money but also to get more people engaged. It does not seem that more people have gotten engaged this time around but it’s something that you learn from and work towards,” he said.
Borek said Samonte will be a great asset for Council and, “just like Bryan Maher, she will bring something to the table. I think you’re going to have a well-rounded Council and it’s going to work together and do some positive things,” Borek says.
Borek said he is scheduled to return Monday, November 14, to attend the regularly scheduled council meeting that night.
At least some of the conversation among the Moving Forward group centered on how Maher would interact with the rest of council. One Moving Forward supporter said that a letter to the editor in the November 4 edition of the WW-P News was correct to suggest that Maher would use Council as a stepping stone to a race for mayor. When one predicted that Maher would be easier to work with than outgoing Councilman Charles Morgan, who did not seek re-election because he is
now spending winters in Florida, another joked, “he could be worse.”
Samonte took the optimistic view of opposition. “Obviously their message did resonate with voters, especially the mantra of working on taxes. They talked about tax control and obviously Council will be working on that agenda. They did get Bryan in and I’ll be happy to work with him and his concerns,” Samonte said.
Samonte, who will be the youngest member of Council at age 40, said she was hoping the Council would concentrate on issues rather than rhetoric. “I hated all of the negative campaigning and some of the ads. I thought it didn’t do anything productive for the debate and I had hoped that it wouldn’t have gone in that direction and that we all could have just been talking about the issues,” she said.
Samonte said she never thought about running for Council when she moved to West Windsor six years ago, and all her opportunities have came though volunteering or being active in the community.
Because it was a school night, Samonte’s husband, Don, stayed home with her young son. He was the first person she called. “When I thought I had a chance I was just getting excited and I was just thinking about all the walking and talking to residents which we did. Hopefully my message resonated with them. If things work out for me tonight or tomorrow morning then I’m excited to get to work,” she said.
One WW-P News reporter, who visited both election parties, said that the first question he got at both locations was whether the negative campaigning this year — highlighted by ads specifically criticizing Kohn, Harris, Diehl, and Borek — was worse than usual in West Windsor. The answer: Possibly. But at the end of the day the closeness of the vote overshadowed the controversy.
