HOLMDEL – Close election results in two races have prompted calls for recounts to ensure the winners are correct.
On Nov. 5, four candidates ran for two seats on the Holmdel Township Committee. On election night, unofficial results showed independent candidates Cathy Weber and Prakash Santhana in the lead, with incumbent Republican Mayor Eric Hinds and running mate Chiung-Yin Cheng Liu falling behind.
After late mail-in ballots and provisionals were tallied last week, there was a surprise. Official results showed that Liu surpassed Santhana by three votes. As of now, she and Weber will claim the two open seats on the Holmdel Township Committee in 2020. Weber currently has the most votes at 2,164; Liu has 2,082; Santhana has 2,079; and Hinds has 2,063.
“Only three votes separate the second and the third place. We wanted to double check to ensure there were no errors,” Santhana told The Two River Times. He said the recount will swing “hopefully in our favor.”
The recount is currently scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 5.
“We are thrilled that Cathy Weber is elected to the Holmdel Township Committee with the most votes,” the Weber Santhana campaign stated in a press release Nov. 19. “However, after more than 2,000 votes were cast for each candidate, only three votes separate second and third place for the second seat. We believe that Holmdel residents deserve to know that the election results are clean and without errors or anything else that could have affected the outcome of the election.”
A recount was also requested in Tinton Falls. In this case, it was for the Monmouth Regional Board of Education race. There are two open spots on the school board, but only one candidate filed a petition to run, Sharon C. Wisdom, who received 3,005 votes, or 96.25 percent of the total votes cast in the race.
The other open seat will be filled by the leading write-in nomination. A recount held Thursday, Nov. 21, confirmed earlier results: There was a tie, with six votes for both James J. Convery and William Reagan. Since the recount Reagan has ceded the seat to Convery. Another write-in candidate, Mason A. Lewis, garnered five write-in votes. On the recount day, the Monmouth County Board of Elections manually rechecked and recounted the late mail-in ballots and provisionals in the Monmouth Regional school board race and reviewed machine tapes from the voting booths Nov. 5.
Robin Major, administrator at the board of elections, said the time it takes to complete a recount can vary, depending on how many districts are involved in the town.
The county charges $25 per district for machine tapes. The Friends of Santhana for Holmdel Township Committee is collecting money to fund the recount costs to the county and for an election law attorney.
