Same five candidates in the lead following provisional vote count
A-Team plans legal action to open 320 voided ballots
Following a count of 169 provisional ballots and 43 challenged vote-by-mail ballots on Friday, the winners of the Asbury Park city council election are the same as they were on the night of the election.
No new ballots will be counted by the Monmouth County Board of Elections, its members said. The official results were posted Friday on the county website, and are listed at bottom.
Campbell, Moor and Quinn ran on the One Asbury ticket. Current council members Loffredo and Henderson ran on the Forward Asbury ticket with fellow council member Kevin Sanders, who was not reelected and remains in sixth place.
Jim Keady, a member of the A-Team ticket, said he and his running mates plan to challenge the results due to 320 vote-by-mail ballots that have been voided by the Board of Elections.
“We are going to try to get them opened to ensure that every voter in Asbury Park has their constitutional right to vote protected and no one in Asbury Park is disenfranchised,” he said on Friday of the 320 voided votes.
Keady himself is now 173 votes away from fifth-place winner Henderson. His A-Team running-mate Duanne Small is within 176 votes of Henderson. Fourth-place winner Campbell is an additional two votes away.
The A-Team has retained Monmouth County Republican Chairman John Bennett as their attorney for a legal challenge to count the 320 voided votes, Small confirmed Friday night.
The A-Team ran a large messenger ballot operation, paying people to act as messengers for up to 10 voters each. A messenger ballot is a type of vote-by-mail ballot whereby someone transports the ballot application and the ballot itself to and from Freehold for the voter.
If a judge decides to open those ballots, A-Team candidates theoretically could win a majority of the seats on the council because the margin between the winners and the top A-Team candidates is within 320 votes.
Based on the newly counted ballots, 225 votes separate the three top A-Team candidates from taking a council majority.
With the new count, Jim Keady has 447 votes, Duanne Small has 444 and A-Team candidate Daniel Harris has 430. The lowest three winners have the following vote counts: Incumbent Susan Henderson with 620, Myra Campbell with 622 and incumbent John Loffredo with 654.
Incumbent Kevin Sanders of Forward Asbury remains in sixth place with 596 votes.
The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office investigated the use of messenger ballots during the election, and executed a search warrant at A-Team headquarters this month.
PROVISIONAL BALLOTS
A voter is able to cast a provisional ballot if he or she arrives at his or her polling location and the poll workers are unable to locate his or her registration information, or if the voter thinks he or she may have registered too late for the election.
On Tuesday, May 14, 169 people voted with provisional ballots. Of those ballots, 57 were voided today and 112 were counted.
About 30 were voided because the Board of Elections had already received vote-by-mail [VBM] ballots from those voters. Even if a voter’s VBM ballot has been voided, his or her provisional ballot will be voided as well, members of the Board of Elections said.
Five provisional ballots were voided because of issues with voters’ signatures. Nine were voided because the voters were not registered. Five were voided because voters failed to complete the affirmation statement required as part of the provisional ballot, and one was voided due to criminal disqualification.
A-Team candidates received the most provisional ballot votes. Remond Palmer received 30 votes. Duanne Small received 32 votes. Nora Hyland received 26 votes. Daniel Harris received 35 votes. Keady received 34 votes.
Within the valid provisional ballots, there were 12 votes for Henderson; 14 votes for Loffredo; 21 votes for Sanders; 10 votes for Hopson; and 14 votes for Potter. Those candidates ran on the Forward Asbury Park ticket.
From the provisional ballots, there were 21 votes for Quinn; 22 votes for Campbell; 16 votes for Woerner; and 16 votes for Crank. Those candidates ran on the One Asbury ticket.
Independent candidate Randy Thompson received four votes from provisional ballots. Independent candidate Harold V. Suggs received none.
Rosetta Johnson received 20 votes from provisional ballots, while Stephen Williams received 19, Clevette Hill received 13, Shonna Famularo received 14 and Dorvil Gilles received 13 votes. Those candidates ran on the AP Out Front ticket.
VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOTS
The Board of Elections had voided 332 vote-by-mail ballots on Election Day. Today, they counted 12 of those ballots, meaning 320 remain voided.
Forty-three of the 332 voided ballots had been challenged on Election Day. The Board of Elections decided to validate eight of those ballots.
Eight of the 332 voided ballots had been voided due to issues with identification. Voters may not have provided identification during the registration process, so they were asked to provide identification at the polls or within 48 hours of casting their votes, board members said. Of those eight voided ballots, four were deemed to be valid.
After those 12 votes were counted, Henderson, Loffredo, Hopson, Potter, Thompson, Suggs, Williams and Gilles received no new votes.
Sanders received one new vote following the counting of those 12 vote-by-mail ballots.
Quinn received two new votes. Campbell received two new votes. Woerner received two new votes. Moor received four new votes. Crank received two new votes.
Palmer received eight new votes. Small received eight new votes. Hyland received four new votes. Harris received seven new votes. Keady received four new votes.
Johnson received one new vote from the 12 VBM ballots. Hill received one new vote. Famularo received one new vote.
The official results posted on the county website are:
| Councilmembers-At-Large Asbury Park City |
| 9/9 100.00% |
| Vote Count | Percent | |
| – Susan Henderson | 620 | 6.96% |
| – John M. Loffredo | 654 | 7.34% |
| – Kevin Sanders | 596 | 6.69% |
| – Gregory Hopson, Sr. | 438 | 4.92% |
| – William D. Potter | 448 | 5.03% |
| – Amy Quinn | 716 | 8.04% |
| – Myra L. Campbell | 622 | 6.98% |
| – Joe Woerner | 584 | 6.56% |
| – John B. Moor | 723 | 8.12% |
| – Talesha A. Crank | 459 | 5.15% |
| – Randy Thompson | 143 | 1.61% |
| – Harold V. Suggs | 48 | 0.54% |
| – Remond Palmer | 419 | 4.71% |
| – Duanne ‘King’ Small | 444 | 4.99% |
| – Nora Hyland | 389 | 4.37% |
| – Daniel Harris | 430 | 4.83% |
| – James Keady | 447 | 5.02% |
| – Rosetta ‘Ella’ Johnson | 179 | 2.01% |
| – Stephen ‘Steve’ Williams | 163 | 1.83% |
| – Clevette ‘Rasul’ Hill | 126 | 1.41% |
| – Shonna ‘Walker’ Famularo | 138 | 1.55% |
| – Dorvil ‘Gregory’ Gilles | 110 | 1.24% |
| Write-In | 9 | 0.10% |
| Total | 8,905 | 100.00% |
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