The 2018 Primary Election is over. Although the political party candidates were unopposed, write-in votes for the Republican Committee members will have two new members join the local political committee with just three (3) votes for resident Robert Domanski and one (1) vote for former Roselle Park mayor Joseph Accardi.
On the Democratic ticket, mayoral candidate Joseph Signorello III received 453 votes. Second Ward Councilman Joseph Petrosky received 127 votes, and Fifth Ward candidate Robert Mathieu received 99 votes. Current mayor Carl Hokanson – who is running as a registered Independent and was not part of the primary election – received six (6) votes through variations of his name. He also received one (1) write-in vote for United States Senator. Mickey Mouse also received one vote for Senator and a vote to represent the second ward.
As far as Republicans, Mayor Hokanson received two (2) write-in votes for mayor while a John Signorello received one (1) vote for Republican mayoral candidate. Current Third Ward Councilman William Fahoury – who is running for mayor – received 210 votes. Second ward candidate Richard Graves received 47 votes and current Fifth Ward Councilman Thomas ‘Thos’ Shipley received 34 votes. Resident John Poulos had one (1) write-in vote each for freeholder, mayor, and county committee member for ward 2, district 1. Robert Domanski received three (3) write-in votes and unless there are more votes for someone else through absentee ballots, if he legally qualifies for the position (lives in the district, is a registered Republican, among others) he will be a committee member. This is because there were no petitions filed for that committee member. Former mayor Joseph Accardi’s one vote will have him become a Republican committee member for his district for the same reason.
In primaries, the number of votes received by candidates along party lines do not correlate with general election results since those votes do not include independent voters or those registered with a political party who do not vote along party lines in November.