Candidates Seek Transparency & Legally-Required Trenton Municipal Runoff from Trenton Clerk

Trenton City Council At-Large Candidates Kadja Manuel, Taiwanda Terry-Wilson, and Alex Bethea have filed a joint complaint against the City of Trenton Municipal Clerk and the Mercer County Board of Elections. The complaint alleges that the Trenton Municipal Clerk, Brandon Garcia, has “failed, neglected, and refused to provide petitioners with calculations of the number of voters who cast at least one vote in the at-large race… this [number] calculates whether or not the Petitioners and the voters in the City of Trenton have a right to a runoff for their at-large council races.”

​​The lawsuit takes aim at Garcia’s math skills and failure to show his work.  The top vote-getter, Yazminelly Gonzalez, only received 39.7 percent of the people who turned out.  Under a 1995 law (NJ 40:45-18), to avoid a runoff and earn a seat on council, Gonzalez had to earn votes equal to half the total voters who voted for one or more At Large Council Candidate. . Since neither Clerk, nor Board of Elections have provided the all-important number of At-Large Council voters, it is impossible to conclusively tell whether she received enough votes. However, for Gonzales to have avoided a runoff, at least 1898 out of the 9248 Trentonians who cast ballots would have had to not vote for ANY At-Large City Council Candidate. The petitioners believe this to be highly improbable.

Garcia has not responded to multiple requests from the Petitioners and their counsel.  Election officials’ silence on this point is fueling suspicion that she didn’t win enough support to secure her a seat on the City Council. This would require that a runoff for at-large city council be held, either along with the December 13 North and South Watd runoff elections, or that an alternate date for this mandatory election be held.

“On Election Day, despite voting machines breaking, and election officials scrambling to run an all-paper election, we were successful in placing in the top six, and according to released results, it does not appear that any candidate received 50%+1 of the vote. NJ state statute is pretty cut and dry. Not only do we believe that the municipal clerk used the wrong formula, but he has also failed to offer the voters of Trenton the transparency they deserve by refusing to show his work”, said Manuel. “I also wish the clerk had certified the election earlier than the day before the Thanksgiving holiday break. Given that we could not file until after certification, Monday was the soonest we could file this complaint.”

The candidates bringing the case are represented by election lawyer Flavio Komuves of Weissman & Mintz, Somerset.  “The New Jersey Supreme Court has spoken: if there is any doubt about whether a candidate has received a majority, a runoff election is required.  Here, a runoff is mandated by law for the Trenton at-large council seats.”

The docket number of the case is MER-L-2029-22.