The Trenton Times published the following article on November 25, 2013. To read the full article, click here.
Amick: Trenton’s election system badly needs reforming
By George Amick/For The Times
on November 25, 2013 at 6:40 AM, updated November 25, 2013 at 10:02 AMLast year, the civic group Majority for a Better Trenton proposed a change in the way the city elects a mayor and council that would save money and increase voter participation. However, the group couldn’t collect enough petition signatures to put its plan on the November ballot, and city council declined to call a referendum on its own.
A city election is coming up next spring. It’s too late to change the rules under which it will be conducted, but the group was correct that Trenton’s election system badly needs reforming. How to reform it ought to be a topic in the 2014 campaign.
It’s a basic issue of the kind that city resident Michael Walker, in a Times op-ed column earlier this month, urged the five announced mayoral hopefuls, and any others who throw their hats into the ring, to address.
Trenton’s quadrennial elections take place in May. If no candidate in a contest for mayor or for a ward council seat wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two finishers in each race is held the following month.
The elections have drawn fewer and fewer voters to the polls over
the years, and in the May 2010 voting, only 11,035 city residents — 28.14 percent of those eligible — took part.Majority for a Better Trenton suggested that the city move its elections to November and make them part of the general election ballot, as state law allows nonpartisan municipalities to do.