By Last Count Red Bank GOP Ahead By Two

While the two Republican candidates for Borough Council remain ahead, control of Red Bank’s governing body is still uncertain as candidates from both parties wait for final vote tallies from last week’s highly-contested race.
More than a week after the polls closed election results have not been certified and the numbers have changed several times.
Election night tallies put the Republican party in control of the Borough Council by four votes, with candidates and Michael Whelan defeating Democrats Michael DuPont and Michael Ballard. Four votes separated Ballard from DuPont, the top Democratic vote-getter.
But by the end of the day Monday, the numbers changed again, and since then only two votes separate the candidates. The County Board of Elections had not completed counting the provisional ballots Tuesday, and Wednesday was a state holiday. There is no word when the election will be certified.
Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal blames the bungled election results on “a lot of incompetence “on the county level. Red Bank and Spring Lake Heights are both waiting for results of close elections that could change party control, and the numbers have changed several times in the hours and days after polls closed last Tuesday night.
“This is really, really disheartening,” Gopal said.

He called on the Board of Elections to not destroy any provisional ballots, and said his party wants a hand recount of all elections closer than 10 votes. The deadline to file requests for recounts is Wednesday, Nov. 18.
“The Board of Elections needs to go through every provisional ballot and explain why each was or was not counted,” Gopal said.
He also called on Acting NJ Attorney General John Jay Hoffman or another third party to oversee the process.
Election night results posted on the Monmouth County website were incorrect on election night, and Monmouth County Clerk Christine Giordano Hanlon attributed the mishap to the county’s software vendor, Dominion Voting Systems, who deleted the vote by mail results “for some unknown reason.”
A count of Red Bank’s provisional ballots Monday gave Ballard a wider lead over DuPont with nine additional votes for Ballard and five for DuPont.
Red Bank GOP Chairman Sean Di Somma, who said he attended Monday’s count held by the Monmouth County Board of Elections in Freehold, said 24 provisional ballots were considered by the board.
Seven ballots were voided and 17 were counted, resulting in nine additional votes for Ballard, five for DuPont, and four each for Taylor and Whelan. One of the voided ballots was later counted, adding one more vote for Taylor, he said.
On Monday, when the Republican lead was more substantial, Di Somma said that while he expected the Democrats to call for a recount, there was “no path to victory” for them.
DuPont confirmed that he will request a recount once the election is certified by Hanlon, which is when the results are considered official.
With just two votes separating him from Whelan, a recount, he said, “will protect all the voters who took the time to vote.”
DuPont noted the historic low voter turnout in the borough – less than 29 percent –and said it’s critical that every vote is counted. Voter turnout county-wide was 22.82 percent.
In a statement released Monday after the count of the provisional ballots, Taylor and Whelan claimed victory saying, “We also believe that a recount in this case is actually a failure to listen to Red Bank’s voters. They’ve been asking for change for years – it’s time to honor that request.”
Mayor Pasquale Menna said the low voter turnout and the series of missteps in finalizing the election results underscores the need to change the way Americans vote.
“American dollars are spent helping third world countries vote electronically,” Menna said. “Yet here we are still dealing with chads and hand counting absentee ballots.”
He called low voter turnout as the “biggest threat to democracy,” and said the United States should invest in the technology to allow citizens to vote from the comfort of their own homes.