Voters May Get to Decide on Moving City Elections to November

City Council may ask Ocean City voters if they want to move municipal elections from May to November.

At a public meeting 7 p.m. Thursday (June 23) at City Hall, council will consider a resolution that calls for adding a nonbinding referendum question to the Nov. 8 ballot this year. The question would ask Ocean City voters if they want to pick their municipal candidates at the same time they vote on county, state and national candidates.

Ocean City has a nonpartisan Faulkner Act form of government—candidates are not affiliated with political parties. A law passed in January 2010 allows New Jersey's 86 Faulkner Act municipalities to move elections from May to November without becoming partisan.

The new law was designed to help towns save money and to potentially increase voter turnout for municipal elections.

Ocean City voters currently go to the polls in April for school elections, in May for city elections and in November for the general election. Towns considering eliminating the May election say they can save as much as $30,000. They also anticipate more than double the voter turnout for municipal elections.

The resolution Ocean City Council will consider on Thursday points out that state law requires elections to be held in November for at least 10 years, if the city does make the change.

If it were enacted, the change would extend the terms of incumbent council members from May 8, 2012, to Jan. 1, 2013 (when the council members elected on Nov. 6, 2012, take office).

City Council's four ward representatives—First Ward John Kemenosh, Second Ward Karen Bergman, Third Ward John Flood (filling the unexpired term of Freeholder Sue Sheppard) and Fourth Ward Roy Wagner—are up for election in May 2012.