Incumbent Third Ward Councilman Bill McKoy expressed confidence Monday night in the face of a May

12th election deadline for voters exercising their franchise in an historic all-vote-by-mail (VBM) election.

He believes he will win over challenger, former At-Large Councilman Alex Mendez.

But he had less overall confidence in the VBM-process, and as Governor Phil Murphy mulls how to handle the coming July 7th Primary elections in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, with a posible announcement by week’s end, McKoy had a few on-the-ground thoughts.

“They would have to do a major scrub and change it drastically to make it work,” the councilman told InsiderNJ.

He acknowledged a “ton of irregularities,”  including what he called a mixed bag on voter registration lists, which include dead people – one of whom McKoy said died 15 years ago. In addition, he said, a lot  of people have not received their ballots.

“There are a lot of extra votes floating in the community, which raises the level of concern,” McKoy said. “The Board of Elections will have to review the process they’re using. As for the Post Office, I understand they are under pressure, but they will have to step up their game.”

Would he advocate an all-VBM primary based on what he experienced in his own ward contest?

“I think the whole idea of affording everyone the opportunity to vote while in this pandemic is a laudable goal,” said McKoy.

To this point, turnout in the 3rd is lightly above where it was in 2016, but not significantly, which is partly why the councilman expressed confidence. “People are still not exercising their franchise though it’s relatively convenient to vote this time.  I do think they can simplify it for people. Clearly, current health concerns are sufficienct to warrant the notion that we need to do this [have an election] with social distancing; though I think that can be accomplished with spacing at the polls.”

Considering the immediacy of his own election, the councilman said again that he believes the numbers favor him over Mendez.

“We should have a good outcome,” he said. “I think in many cases Mendez is a known quantity and more of a confidence guy. The reaction seems to be, ‘You’re not able to sell me that product anymore. We’ve bought the used car.’ He had no message this time around, just catch-phrases on a piece of paper to malign my character. Not very successful.”