The Status Quo Reigns in West Orange
Posted on 11 May 2010
95% of the districts are in, totaling 16,203 votes in the Council race. Here are the tallies.
| Rodolfo D. RODRIGUEZ | 1,861 | 11.49% |
| Jill TEKEL | 1,100 | 6.79% |
| Jerry GUARINO | 3,125 | 19.29% |
| Victor CIRILO | 3,308 | 20.42% |
| Joe KRAKOVIAK | 2,810 | 17.34% |
| Susan McCARTNEY | 3,987 | 24.61% |
That’s McCartney 679 votes ahead of her partner, Vic Cirilo, who is 183 votes ahead of the Jerry Guarino and 498 votes ahead of Joe Krakoviak.
If the remaining 5% of the districts are about the same in number, they constitute about 852 votes — 426 people casting two votes each. It seems very, very unlikely that McCartney would receive fewer votes than Cirilo; it’s impossible for Jerry Guarino would receive more than 426 votes, and he needs 679. Hence Susan McCartney will receive the most votes in the Council race.
For Guarino to get ahead of Cirilo, he’d need to get 21% more of the vote than Cirilo: not 21%, but 21% more, so that if Cirilo got 10%, Guarino would need 31%. For Krakoviak, the number is 58%, which is impossible. Barring a miracle, Cirilo will get the second seat in the Council race.
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In the mayoral race, it’s much closer, but not close enough. Schmidt has 49.1% of the vote, or 4590. Parisi has 50.8%, or 4750. That’s a difference of only 160 votes out of 9349.
Again, doing the math, the 5% of districts not yet reported may have about 492 votes in them. To catch up, Schmidt needs to overcome that 160-vote lead, which would require him to get 326 votes and Parisi to get 166 votes, or 66% and 33% of the vote, respectively. Though possible, that seems unlikely. I’m calling Parisi the winner.
I could be wrong if there’s a greater population density (i.e., more than 852 Council votes, more than 492 mayoral votes) left in those districts. I could also be wrong if there’s an unusual demographic in those districts (e.g., a higher density of orthodox Jews, who are more likely to vote for Schmidt). But unless something’s wacky, we’re stuck with the status quo.
If Schmidt couldn’t win this year, he will never win. Conservatives need a different candidate.
Cirilo was elected, at least in part, by riding on McCartney’s and Parisi’s coattails. They used the same basic collateral, and they had people at the polling booths touting all three candidates. Conservatives need to be less independent, and create a slate. That would have been pretty lousy this year, because Schmidt isn’t a good candidate; however, in the future that kind of synergy will be very important.
I’m more pissed off than I want to admit.
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