Write-Ins Were Message For Ocean City Incumbents, Resident Says

OCEAN CITY, NJ — Ocean City resident Suzanne Hornick said residents were delivering a message with their write-in votes in Tuesday night's elections.

“There’s a message here, and it’s that people are watching, and we don’t like what we see,” Hornick said.

A total of 81 voters in Tuesday night’s Ocean City Council elections cast a write-in ballot for either Hornick or Cindy Nevitt, or some variation of their name, according to the Cape May County Clerk’s Office.

Nevitt, a former Press of Atlantic City journalist who covered Ocean City, received 43 votes. Hornick, the Founder and Chair of the activist group OC Flooding, received 38 votes.

A total of 133 write-in votes were cast in Tuesday’s non-partisan elections, meaning more than half of them went to Nevitt and Hornick. Officially, Council President Peter Madden, Councilman Keith Hartzell and Councilwoman Karen Bergman all ran for re-election to their four-year seats unopposed.

“People want the incumbents to know that people are watching and they're unhappy with the lack of communication and lack of transparency from the city,” said Hornick, who said she heard about the effort to write-in Nevitt and herself a few days before the election.

Nevitt believes she and Hornick were the write-in candidates of choice because of their high profiles in the Ocean City community. People told her they were thinking of turning in blank ballots, but Nevitt said the best way to get the attention of the incumbents was to leave an actual name.

"It seemed a more noticeable protest," she said. "People asked me if I thought about running, and I told them, 'You have my permission to write my name in.'"

That's how she ended up with the fourth highest number of votes in a council election in which her name didn't actually appear on the ballot. Nevitt said she considered a run for office two years ago, but it didn't pan out.

Residents weren’t happy that Gillian opted not to participate in the only scheduled mayor’s debate, or that none of the three council members running for re-election appeared for a candidate’s forum sponsored by Fairness In Taxes (FIT) at the library.

Hornick said she spoke with others who are unhappy with the way things are going in Ocean City and chose not to vote. Voter turnout was about 33 percent of the total number of 9,226 registered voters in Ocean City.

Hornick has never seriously considered running for office. Working to solve the city’s flooding issues is her priority in the political arena.

The OC Flooding Group, which has over 2,000 members, is actively working with other flooding groups and scientific groups nationwide, Hornick said.

Michael Hinchman, Bill Hartranft, Jim Tweed, Georgina Shanley and Ed Price are among the other Ocean City residents who received write-in votes in the council elections. There were also people who simply wrote, “Need Change.” There were also, of course, the usual ballots cast for Santa Claus and Donald Trump.

In the mayor’s race, won by incumbent Jay Gillian, there were 14 write-in votes, including votes for Hinchman, Price, as well as Hartzell and Councilman Bob Barr. Gillian won another four-year term with 2,023 votes, defeating former councilman John Flood.

Photo credit: Shutterstock/Damir Sencar