Brick School Board Race Remains Tight

BRICK, NJ — The five candidates for the two seats on the Brick Township Board of Education saw their vote totals increase on Thursday as Ocean County election officials released additional tallies.

But the increases have not changed the rankings among the five.

According to unofficial tallies on the Ocean County election results website, Missy Parker contines to lead, with 11,784 so far. Michael Blandina continues to sit in second place, with 11,195, and 99 votes separate him and Jessica Clayton, who has 11,096 votes. Micah Bender sits in fourth place with 10,552 votes, and Melissa Lozada has 8,611 votes.

Ocean County on Wednesday had more than 49,000 ballots countywide that still needed to be counted, not including mail-in ballots that were sent through the mail and not including provisional ballots cast at polling places on Tuesday. Mail-in ballots had to be postmarked by Nov. 3 and must be received by the Board of Elections by 8 p.m. Nov. 10 to be accepted. Provisional ballots will be counted once it's confirmed the voters did not submit mail-in ballots.

The election results will remain unofficial until they are certified. County clerks must transmit final results to the state by Nov. 23, according to the state Division of Elections.

It's not known how many ballots remain to be counted from Brick voters. So far, more than 36,500 ballots have been counted in Brick, which has 57,124 registered voters.

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