Joel Schwartz, who has been critical of the School Board’s decision to renew the agreement that sends Cranbury students to Princeton High School and of the board’s analysis that underlies the referendum in November, and his wife, Corrine O’Hara, have filed a lawsuit against the district. The suit alleges that the board’s use of an electronic voting system violates the state’s Open Public Meetings Act, commonly known as the Sunshine Law.
Schwartz and O’Hara contend that the computer voting system does not allow the public to witness which school board members vote yes or no, or abstain. The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the June 12 vote on the new 10-year sending and receiving agreement with Cranbury and invalidate any previous votes by the board that used the electronic voting methodology. A hearing was scheduled with Judge Mary Jacobson for Thursday, September 27, in Mercer County Court. Since the new system was adopted in 2017, there is no verbal roll call vote at school board meetings.
According to a report in Planet Princeton, “the voting results are not read out loud at the Princeton School Board meetings. Votes are displayed on a screen at the front of the room, but people who are not sitting close enough can’t read the screen. Sometimes the vote only briefly flashes on the screen.”
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