Absentee Ballots Could Change Outcome of School Board Race

The polls have closed, but Hoboken's elections may not be over yet.

According to the Hudson County Board of Elections, 1,875 vote by mail ballots were received and are yet to be counted, according to the board clerk Michael Harper.

Due to Sandy, the ballot receipt deadline was moved to November 19, Harper said.

Because of that extention, Harper continued, "the board will not be releasing vote by mail tallies untill November 20th."

A total of 2,824 vote by mail ballots were requested from Hoboken. Some more may come in, according to Harper.

The three Kids First candidates received a majority of the votes on Tuesday, beating all three Move Forward candidates on the machines. 

"The vote by mails are scary," said Ruth McAllister, one of the Kids First candidates at their victory party at Court Street.

Harper said that by the end of the week, he should know more about the email votes by those who have been displaced. "Those tallies will probably be released along with those of the traditional vote by mails," Harper said.

The county also received a large amount of provisional votes, Harper said. The provisionals will be opened and tallied at an open public meeting. This will likely happen before Thanksgiving, he said.

The Kids First slate was made up of McAllister, Tom Kluepfel and Jean Marie Mitchell and backed by Mayor Dawn Zimmer. On Tuesday, Kluepfel earned a total of 3426 machine votes, Mitchell received 3223 votes and McAllister took 3498 votes.

The other slate in Tuesday's elections was Move Forward, made up of candidates Anthony Oland, Felice Vasquez and Liz Markevitch.

Oland received a total of 2512 votes, Markevitch got 2844 votes and Vazquez got 2488 votes. Independent Patricia Waiters got a total of 987 votes.

As far as the three public questions go, it seems that eliminating the run offs and moving the elections to November will not be overturned.

While rent control was upheld by a difference of roughly 500 votes, it's still unclear if the vote by mail ballots will have an effect on the outcome of Public Question no. 2.