Edison, Hoboken Candidates Win Despite Racist Fliers

EDISON, NJ — Despite an unsavory batch of fliers distributed right before the election, calling to "deport" two Asian Edison Board of Ed. candidates, those two candidates emerged victorious Tuesday.

Jerry Shi and Falguni Patel each won two seats on the Edison school board, winning 6,259 and 6,115 votes each. Beth Moroney also won a seat on the board with 5,991 votes. Patel and Shi ran as a team alongside incumbents Moroney and Paul Distefano, both of whom are white. Three other candidates who ran are also of Asian descent. There were eleven candidates in total for three open seats on the Edison school board.

Similarly, in Hoboken, Sikh Ravi Bhalla emerged as Hoboken's first Sikh mayor, despite the fact that he was targeted with fliers right before the election, too, that featured a photo of his face and the words "Don't let terrorism take over our town!!" Bhalla garnered 4,781 votes, about 34 percent of the total ballots cast for Hoboken mayor. It was a narrow victory over the second-place candidate, Mike DeFusco, who got 4,116 votes (about 29 percent).

DeFusco said that the flyers – which state that they were "paid for by Team DeFusco For Hoboken" – were "racist and disgusting." He denied any connection between his campaign and the flyers, and said that he plans to demand an investigation with the Hoboken Police Department and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office to "determine who intentionally misrepresented" his campaign.

The Edison fliers read: "Make Edison Great Again," and featured pictures of Shi and Patel, both of Asian descent, with the word "deport" stamped on them.

"The Chinese and Indians are taking over our town!" the flier also says on the front. "Stop the overcrowding! Stop taking over our sports fields!" the flyer says on the back, also decrying "McMansion homes," multiple families living in one house, "wasting school holidays," and "outsiders."

As Patch reported, Edison has a large Asian population, particularly Southeast Asian. According to the 2010 census, the town's population of just over 100,000 is 43 percent Asian. Caucasian people make up 44 percent of the town's population. Edison is known for its "Little India" section of town along Oak Tree Road.

Edison public school students were given the day off for Chinese New Year for a number of years, and were given Diwali, an Indian holiday, off for the first time this October. The Diwali decision remains controversial among some in Edison.

Both Edison mayoral candidates, Democrat and incumbent Tom Lankey and Republican Keith Hahn, denounced the flyer. Lankey won re-election as Edison's mayor last night. Hahn is an Edison police officer and the town's former Democratic Chairman. He switched parties and ran as a Republican in the mayoral race.