Election Update and Analysis

New statement from Jack Ciattarelli  "The governor's victory speech last night was premature. No one should be declaring victory or conceding the election until every legal vote is counted." Says his decision on recount may not be for a week or two.

 -The era of trusting political askanim in the frum community is changing as was evident in the election results from Brooklyn - Lakewood. Control of the bloc vote is not a guarantee anymore as people will do what they want regardless of what they are told through letters of roshei yeshiva and rabbonim, robocalls and the media. There is a mistrust by the public of political askanim of having been owned by politicians or other factors that come along with politics.  

- People just don't  vote  because they either have given up as there is no  new candidates  locally,  and dont feel there is much to change with the same incumbants and no teem limits. some find it hard to go out and vote with long lines at polling stations. This year 1100  took advantage of early voting

- Could Lakewood have made the difference? It is hard to know as the numbers are not final but what is clear from the results is there was a low turnout and people stayed home. You can't compare an off year gov race to the 2017 elections with Trump on the ticket as some pundits have done. 

Had the Vaad endorsed Ciattarelli most

probably there would have had a much higher voter turnout and easily could have had 20k+ votes and less votes for murphy. People stayed home not to be put in a position to vote against what they personaly believe in. The Campaign pushing for Murphy ended up suppressing votes with claims that he would win in a landslide which turned out not to be true and people opted for shev veal taaseh.

-Askanim pushed an ad campaign to get voter turnout but at the same time did not want votes for Ciattarelli which kept voters away.

-In Jackson despite meetings and letters the frum  candidate came in last, due to low turnout. 

-Websites and social media don't sway the frum vote much, newspapers still have a higher influence, but more importantly people make up their own minds about what fits with their hashkafa outlook.    

-On a local Level the incumbent township committeeman got 39% and 29% of the vote the others got 20% and 9% with no name recognition at all.  Voter turnout was at 35%.

-The Lakewood Vaad in its current form is done. They know it themselves and have pledged to change years ago but nothing happened. While they control a bloc of 3-4k votes the election results showed that most people do what they feel is best for them. They have lost all credibility and trust and the political endorsements fosters resentment with our neighbors and within the community. A growing town with hundreds of rabbonim who lead their communities can't continue to be told what to do by a small group of unknown balei batim.