Thursday, November 17, 2005

Lakewood votes analyzed

Informative facts in the Tri Town News on Lakewood's election:

..Democrats Ray Coles and Charles Cunliffe both received an endorsement from the Vaad, the political advocacy organization that represents the interests of Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community. The endorsement is key to winning political races in Lakewood since many Orthodox residents will not only vote in accordance with the recommendation, but turn out in numbers that ensure the endorsed candidate wins.
Republican Steven Langert maintained that the Vaad’s endorsement was key in giving the incumbents a victory over him and his running mate, Sean Gertner.
“The party that gets the Vaad endorsement wins in a landslide, but I only lost by 1,000 votes and Sean only lost by 1,500,” Langert said. “If you take out the Orthodox vote, we win a landslide. Ray Coles and Charlie Cunliffe were re-elected only because of the Vaad.”
That is a point Coles conceded in a separate interview.
“We had problems with the senior villages, but if you analyze the data, you won’t see many Orthodox going against the Vaad’s endorsement,” Coles said. “Maybe a few hundred voted (for Republicans, but) where the Orthodox community may have an 80 to 90 percent turnout, the senior community does not.”
A review of the election results showed that voters in only one of the five districts that include the Original Leisure Village supported the Democratic ticket, while three districts split their vote between Cunliffe and Langert and a fourth district split the vote between Cunliffe and Gertner.
Voters in one of the two districts that comprise Leisure Village East also split the ticket, giving the win to Cunliffe and Langert. Voters in the community’s other district voted the Republican party line.

Republicans captured many of Lakewood’s other adult communities, including Lions Head, Harrogate, Four Seasons and The Fairways. Democrats took the two voting districts in A Country Place.
Voter turnout in Lakewood ranged from a low of 15 percent in District 27, the Eleanor Levovitz Senior Citizen Apartments ( Y.O.: where yehiva guys vote!), to a high of 70 percent in one of the voting districts in the Four Seasons. Overall, voters in many of the town’s adult communities turned out in percentages almost as high....
Langert said the close election was indicative of the Republicans’ efforts to reach out to all of Lakewood’s diverse communities.
“I’m glad the senior citizens understood my message,” he said. “[But] Lakewood is a lot bigger than just the Orthodox and the seniors. I’m proud to say that even though I wear a yarmulke on my head, no one was afraid of that and thought I wouldn’t represent them as well. They trusted me and believed enough in me that I would not overlook their needs and wants and concerns. That’s the way it should be because everyone in Lakewood is important.” ...

Will the vaad now scrutinize and be on top of the newly elected officials to keep their word and lower property taxes?

posted by Yeshiva Orthodoxy
at 4:36 PM

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