NORTH BERGEN – All elections are about numbers, but that usually means votes. In this politically-charged Hudson County town, the numbers now in dispute are about nominating petitions.

A few weeks ago, long-time Mayor Nick Sacco and his team of four fellow commissioners triumphantly claimed they had garnered about 10,000 petition signatures for each candidate, more than 50,000 in all.  One person generally signs five petitions – one for each candidate. As the mayor and others effusively thanked the signers, the petitions were neatly stacked in rows of boxes in the township’s meeting room.

All this apparently inspired Larry Wainstein, the mayor’s main opponent in the May 14 municipal election, to do some checking. Wainstein went to the town clerk’s office to review the petitions and discovered that only about 1,100 petition signatures were on file for each candidate. This, of course, is much more than the number required to get on the ballot, but that isn’t the point. Wainstein immediately put together a YouTube video and called the mayor a liar for saying he has gathered 50,000 petition signatures.

Not one to leave such a charge go unanswered, the Sacco team summoned the press Tuesday afternoon to its Kennedy Boulevard campaign office. Sacco wasn’t there, but Freeholder Anthony Vainieri, a key supporter, and others, were. And so were the same boxes of petitions that first appeared in township hall a few weeks ago.

No one disputed that only 1,100 petition signatures were filed with the clerk. But here’s where things get amusing.

The Sacco team said it did not file the entire load of petitions. Why not? Considerate folks that they are, the campaign said filing all the petitions would have overworked the clerk’s office to the tune of “thousands of dollars in overtime.”  Still, the campaign said in a statement that whether a petition was officially filed or not, each petition signer can look forward to getting a “thank you” letter from the mayor paid for by the campaign. That apparently won’t overwork anyone.

There’s a political side here as well.

Petitions are public records. Candidates commonly review nominating petitions of their opponents trying to find errors or merely to see who their supporters are.

But petitions are not public records if they aren’t filed.

As Vainieri candidly said about the boxes of petitions sitting in front of him, “They’re not OPRA-able,” which is politician speak for not being subject to the state’s Open Public Records Act. So, Wainstein will not get to see who signed them.

Needless to say, the Sacco team said that by claiming there were not a total of  50,000 petition signatures, Wainstein was living up to the name, “Lying Larry,” which the mayor’s campaign came up with four years ago.

In response, a Wainstein spokesman said it really was Sacco who was lying about having 50,000 signatures.

And the Wainstein camp offered a name of its own – “Power plant Sacco.”

This is in reference to the administration’s support of a proposed electric generating plant in the North Bergen Meadowlands. This is an issue that transcends North Bergen with much opposition coming from nearby towns in southern Bergen County.

Derogatory political names can be amusing. Think “Slick Willie,” and “Tricky Dick.”

But “Power plant Sacco?”  That one needs some work.