Rodriguez Calls for Official Machine Count at County Clerk Convention, Announces Legislation

ELIZABETH, NJ — Assemblyman Ed Rodriguez (D-20) today released the following statement ahead of the August 18 special Union County Democratic convention to select a nominee for County Clerk:

"On August 18, Democratic county committee members will choose our party's nominee for Union County Clerk, the office responsible for administering elections in this county for the next five years. No one should lose sight of the irony that we are selecting a nominee for the very office that counts everyone else's votes. If there was ever a ballot that should be counted properly, by secret ballot, tabulated on official voting machines, with results certified and open to observers, it is this one.

"There is a second reason this vote deserves real safeguards. This is one of the rare occasions when state law, not party rules, gives every elected county committee member an actual vote. Unfortunately, in every ordinary contest, the Union County Democratic Committee bylaws leave that decision to a small group of chairs, one person per town, meeting behind closed doors. Hundreds of committee members were chosen by their neighbors to represent them. Their votes should be cast in private, counted by machine, and certified in public, not tallied by hand in a room where everyone can see who is watching.

"Because this should be the standard everywhere in New Jersey, I will be introducing legislation requiring that when party committees vote to fill vacancies in nominations for public office, those votes be cast with the same privacy, counted with the same official machine tabulation, and certified with the same transparency I am calling for here. When the law hands party organizations the power to choose who appears on our ballots, the counting should meet the same standard we demand in any election.

"Joanne Rajoppi spent thirty years earning Union County's trust in its elections. The process for nominating her successor should be worthy of her standard. I call on the county organization to conduct the August 18 vote by secret ballot with an official machine count. Nothing stops them from doing voluntarily on August 18 what my bill would make mandatory."