Middletown Committee, BOE Race Can't Be Called; Votes Outstanding

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — By Wednesday morning, the two Republicans still lead for Middletown Township Committee (Pat Snell and Ryan Clarke) and the 1,2,3 slate of Jackie Tobacco, Frank Capone and Harmony Heffernan were still leading for Board of Education.

However, there are still 150,000 to 200,000 outstanding votes that still have to be counted as of Wednesday morning, County Clerk Christine Hanlon confirmed to Patch.

Currently, about 56 percent of Monmouth County's mail-in ballots have been counted. What hasn't been counted yet? Mail-in ballots cast on election day, late mail-in ballots, machine votes and provisional ballots.

Middletown Mayor Tony Perry, Republican, predicted Snell and Clarke will win once all the voters were counted.

"I'm very confident that the lead Pat and Ryan now hold is going to get even bigger as the votes come in," he told Patch Wednesday afternoon.

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"We congratulate all the candidates on running and putting their names out there, especially in this difficult COVID environment," said Middletown Board president Pam Rogers on Tuesday night. "We will reserve comment on the results until every vote is counted."

"We are going to reserve comment until the election is official or the others concede, but we are very encouraged by support of the Middletown voters thus far," said Capone in a statement to Patch.

"I wish the best of luck to the winning candidates as I know they will do what is best for the students of the district," said BOE candidate Ray Jankowski.

What is the reason for the delay and all the outstanding ballots? If you mailed your ballot back on Election Day, it still has to be counted.

If you voted by paper ballot (provisional) at the polls Tuesday, that vote will not be counted until Nov. 10 — at the earliest, said the county clerk.

That's because the county has to count all the mail-in ballots first, and those can be received up to Nov. 10.

"We have to wait to make sure voters haven't returned the mail-in ballot first," explained Clerk Hanlon, Republican, who herself is up for re-election and is currently ahead with votes.

The state of New Jersey allowed voters to mail their vote back on Election Day; it had to be postmarked by Nov. 3 and can be received as late as Nov. 10. So across New Jersey, county clerks have to wait for all the mail-in votes to come by back by Nov. 10, and then cross check to make sure someone did not vote twice, such as voting at the ballot box and by mail-in.

However, the number of provisional and machine votes in Monmouth County is low. Most voted by mail, said the clerk.

"What I'm seeing and what I'm happy about is that it seems the provisional ballot count is going to be low," she told Patch.

Hanlon said she was still "very upset" Gov. Murphy made the election primarily vote by mail.

"Because we're not going to have results for weeks. The change caused a massive strain on the infrastructure and it was a strain on resources. If we were on machines it would have been done already. But I'm happy that our voters rose to the challenge and voted in the mail-in ballots."

"(The idea of not counting votes) is just a rumor," she said. "By law every ballot in New Jersey needs to be counted."

The returns so far show Joe Biden leading in Monmouth County, and the Democrats Michael Penna and Moira Nelson leading the county Freeholder race, over incumbents Lillian Burry and Ross Licitra.

Vote count by 1:12 a.m. Nov. 4 for Middletown BOE:

CAPONE 7,926 14.66%

TOBACCO 7,790 14.41%

HEFFERNAN 7,001 12.95%

DiFRANCO 5,251 9.71%

STELLA 5,058 9.36%

ROGERS 4,922 9.10%

BRODIN 4,571

SMITH 4,535 8.39%

REED 4,442 8.22%

JANKOWSKI 2,461 4.55%

Vote count by 1:12 a.m. Nov. 4 for Middletown Township Committee:

Patricia A. SNELL 12,144 27.79%

Ryan M. CLARKE 11,904 27.24%

Marguerite STOCKER 9,923 22.71%

Brian W. PENSCHOW 9,714 22.23%

Current Board members Robin Stella, Nick DiFranco and president Pamela Rogers ran as a slate to keep their seats.

They were challenged by the Putting Children First slate of Jacqueline Tobacco, Frank Capone and Harmony Heffernan, running on a Republican agenda of cutting the school budget, getting kids back in school as quickly as possible and criticizing the Black Lives Matter march, held on school grounds this summer.

Then there was the "Unifying Middletown" slate of Kelly Brodin, Pam Smith and Patricia Reed, who painted themselves as a cohesion party, promising to bring together a community driven to opposite poles of Stella/Rogers/DiFranco vs. Tobacco/Heffernan/Capone.

Finally, Raymond Jankowski ran as an independent candidate.