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To: Residents of Trenton, NJ

Stop Trenton City Council from Granting Themselves 6 More Months in Office

We are asking City Council to vote NO on ordinance 20-51, so as not to change the municipal election date, thereby giving themselves an additional 6 months in office.

Additionally, we are recommending that City Council investigate other methods of increasing voter turnout, as well as conduct additional research into the projected impact of changing the election date, and explore other election types such as Instant Runoff Elections.

Why is this important?

On Thursday, September 17th 2020, Trenton City Council will be voting on a final reading of Ordinance 20-51, which would change the municipal election date from May to November. This would go into effect so as to change the date of our next up-coming municipal election, scheduled for 2022, meaning that the current council members would benefit from an extension of 6 months onto their current term.

Additionally, no formal study has been conducted to determine the benefits or potential pitfalls of this change in our particular city. Council members who are in favor of this change cite other cities and townships in New Jersey who have combined their municipal and general elections as a reason to follow suit, without considering the fact the Trenton, unlike most of those other municipalities, has nonpartisan elections, often resulting in ballots with many candidates and requiring a runoff. These other municipalities don't require runoffs because they have partisan elections, where two candidates (one for each of the major political parties) run against each other. If Trenton were to hold our nonpartisan municipal election in November, this would mean that we would have a runoff election in December, that does not align with any other election and falls in the winter. This would likely result in even lower voter turnout for runoff elections than our current municipal election turnout, thereby defeating the alleged purpose of the change.

Updates

2020-09-15 10:14:55 -0400

100 signatures reached

2020-09-14 22:04:19 -0400

50 signatures reached

2020-09-14 20:05:26 -0400

25 signatures reached

2020-09-11 17:28:32 -0400

10 signatures reached