Moving Elections to November: The part they won’t mention

Those that care about local issues will no longer hear about them
Those that do not care about local issues, won’t vote in council / BOE races anyway (look at the numbers)

Township managers must remain independent of party bosses’ influence

There’s a move underfoot to move non-partisan Council elections (held in May) to November, to coincide with general partisan elections.

We moved the election from November to May in 1930, when Teaneck was nearly bankrupted by partisan forces.
Since then, powers in Trenton have tried many times to move back to partisan elections, with a first step of moving the Municipal Elections to November.

The Board of Education has already moved to November (by moving to November, BOE budgets with increases below 2% are no longer subject to ballot referendum) and the argument put forward is typically: higher turnout and lower costs, so let’s sign.

But there’s a part they won’t mention in the pitch to get you to sign:

  1. Partisan forces should not decide who runs our town
    Independence from party bosses has always been critical to aTown Manager’s success
  2. Turnout doesn’t actually increase
    Don’t take my word for it, look at the numbers
  3. Partisan injection to local non-partisan races is bad no matter which side it comes from
    The reason we have May elections is to remove partisan influences from decisions and decision-makers
  4. Local issues will be drowned out
    The constant drumbeat of stories (remember Trump / Biden?) take the public’s attention and consequently the front page of the paper

I’ll cover each of the issues on their own, so you can review the data and make up your own minds

First up:

Turnout: Does the turnout argument have merit?

May-November Relationship: Does the turnout argument have merit?