BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
WESTWOOD, N.J.—After a Superior Court judge ruled a disputed mail-in ballot could be counted, two-term Republican incumbent Councilman Ray Arroyo now trails Democratic Councilman-elect James Whelan by one vote.
It’s slim progress for team “Always Westwood,” which was swept Nov. 6.
Whelan remains the winner pending any challenge.
State law gives Arroyo 10 days to decide whether to fight on. He told Pascack Press on Dec. 6 of the prior day’s ruling, “I’m not thinking about it right now. I need to catch my breath.”
Whelan now has 2,403 votes and Arroyo has 2,402. Democratic challenger Jodi Murphy, a longtime town volunteer, defeated Republican incumbent Alyssa Dawson, 2,604 to 2,295.
The county certified Whelan with a 0.08 percent advantage, which Arroyo said obligated him to ask for a recount.
“Monday morning I was down four votes. I could have come out of the recount in the same position, picked up some ground or lost ground. I could have come out down eight,” Arroyo said of his gamble.
Instead he came out tied with one mail-in ballot in dispute. The four Board of Election commissioners (two Republicans and two Democrtats) could not agree on whether a ballot that had a telephone number marked on the bottom of it was valid.
Arroyo said Superior Court Judge Estela M. De La Cruz ruled that the ballot should be counted.
“I ended up losing by one vote from a disputed ballot. It doesn’t get closer than that,” Arroyo said.
He added, “I’m paying for my recount attorney and the challenge will be more expensive. I don’t have the backing of a county political machine, with attorneys behind me willing to work pro bono. So I’m not sure what, if anything, I’ll be doing.”
Coincidentally, county officials said, one Westwood voter lodged a personal choice ballot in the election.
Had the vote ended in a tie there would have been a runoff, with another round of campaigning. The seat would then likely stand vacant until March.
He called the regular campaign “exhausting and interminable.”
Explaining his call for a manual recount after the four-vote spread was revealed, Arroyo said, “I’m sure if Whelan were upside down by four votes his people would insist he do the same.”
Reached for comment Nov. 21, Whelan agreed.
“I assumed that a recount would happen. I would hope that if it were the other way around my party would want a recount,” he said.