I found it disturbing that the West Windsor candidates for council were not listed in a “line” type vote pattern under their mayoral candidate running mates on the November 5 ballot. I believe this might have caused numerous mis-votes.
The choices for governor were clearly listed with their running mate teams in the familiar “line” type fashion. It’s what the voting public has become conditioned to see over the years. This usually makes it very easy to “vote the line” for your candidate and their running mates.
The way our mayoral candidates were listed — separately from their running mates — purposely or not, made it extremely misleading if you simply voted “down the line” for the mayor, assuming, like the gubernatorial candidates, you were voting for his running mates too.
I’m sure more than a few voters fell into this trap and mistakenly voted for people they had no intention of voting for by simply “voting down the line.”
Yes, of course there is no excuse for any voting errors seeing that the ballot had been mailed out long before November 5, giving each voter enough time to look it over and see where their candidate choices appeared. This should have ensured voters would hit the proper “X” behind that voting curtain.
It should have, but I don’t think it did.
I find it curious that both candidates — Linda Geevers and Peter Mendonez — who were from the “Time for Change” team, but who were listed under the winning incumbent, Shing-Fu Hsueh (from the Foward Together team), were both successfully voted into office.
What instantly pops to my mind is that old 1980s song — “Things that make you go Hmmm . . .”
Michele Farrell
Please do not think of me as a sore loser but the residents of West Windsor deserve to know what transpired on November 5. We are taught from the time we are 18 to vote in the same column if you want to support “the person on top,” in our case Mayor Hsueh. Unfortunately for Kamal Khanna and me we were not under Mayor Hsueh but in fact below a candidate who ended up with 770 votes.
The numbers paint a pretty clear picture. Rich Visovsky ended up with 770 total votes but being under Hemant Marathe, his team ended up with 1,346 and 1,240. Nothing against any of them but did almost twice the number of voters really decide to not vote for Rich but vote for his team?
That being said, did 1,050 of the mayor’s supporters mean to vote for him but NOT Kamal and me since we ended up with over 1,000 votes less than the Mayor? Would 1,000+ voters, approximately one-third of his total vote, intentionally vote for his opposition? I highly doubt it, which is why this ballot must be called into question and people should have their true intent heard.
What is the point of having an election if the people do not end up with who they thought they voted for? If you look at all of the districts individually you will notice a common theme. Linda Geevers and Peter Mendonez end up with roughly the same number of votes as Mayor Hsueh, whom they were immediately below, and Kamal and I have roughly one-third less. Further, Martin Whitfield and Debra Hepler ended up with approximately one-third more votes than their mayoral running mate Rick Visovsky. This is not a coincidence and shows approximately one-third of the people voting potentially were misled by the ballot.
I am positive the majority of people would not agree with the way the ballot was set up. Without a doubt it influenced the outcome. Do the residents want to be represented by people they didn’t mean to elect?
Again, I am not being a sore loser and if this was a legitimate loss I would be the first to say congratulations, but it is not what the residents of West Windsor asked for. So I have to speak up. The numbers make it very clear West Windsor residents are not being represented correctly.
If you think you may have voted incorrectly we would like to hear from you at wwforwardtogether@gmail.com
Or please call the county clerk to express your concern.
Eric Payne
