HOBOKEN -- Not again! For real?
NJ.com reported Tuesday that a Superior Court judge overturned November's 8,248-to-8,196 vote that rejected changes to Hoboken's long-standing rent control laws. The changes, proposed by a property owners' group, would have eliminated rent control in certain buildings when current tenants left. But the changes were narrowly defeated.
The property owners want a new vote because they say the hurricane and other factors prevented some from voting on the issue.
To read a more detailed explanation on the vote, see related links to past stories, below.
Watch this site for updates when more information is available.
First as noted by the court in the decision voiding the election, there are at least 114 and as many as 186 voters whose ballots did not contain any Hoboken public questions or candidates. Thus the reference to nearly 200.
To your point about who among those came forward to complain about it, the state law does not require those whose rights have been violated in an election to come forward and complain. What is required is that 15 people who are registered voters file the election contest. That is what happened here. If you would like to speak to any or all of the people whose ballots violated the law, I would be happy to give you the list Os names and addresses.
That said, we did speak to MANY other voters who never got their ballots to vote at all until days after the polls closed. Your next questions suggest that one should have to explore how someone who was denied their right to vote, would have actually voted in the election. Here is where you really go off track. How someone voted or would have voted is considered confidential and no one can compel a voter how they would have voted. Voting is considered a confidential matter. That is why the court followed the state law on the subject and did not consider this irrelevant issue. Since more than 52 voters were denied their right to vote for or against the public question, that is sufficient grounds to void the election.
Where you are most wrong is you conclusion that this was not about voter rights. While radical rent control advocates must be disappointed because this illegal election result has been declared void, this claim was fully focused on voter rights. All voters must be given a full and equal opportunity to participate in the election. When that doesn't happen our democracy demands that the election must be conducted again.
Your previous comments have claimed that 200 voters were "denied" the right to vote. Now your admitting that it may have been as few as 114. That's not lawyering. That's lying.
Just curious - how many of those 114 (or 186 take your pick) who didn't get to vote on this issue came forward who you are supposedly advocating for came forward to complain that their right to vote was taken away?
Would people who voted out of town have voted virtually unanimously for your proposal when people who voted in hoboken split almost evenly? Why do you think that? Since you're so interested in "voter rights" how many of those voters whose rights you claim to be defending have you spoken to? How many say they would have voted on rent control if they had the chance? How many of those would have voted yes and how many would have voted no?
You won't answer these questions because sadly the one thing this decision seems to have had nothing to do with is voter rights.