With two incumbents, one previous challenger and five fresh faces all contending for three spots on Haddonfield’s board of commissioners, you wouldn’t expect such an open field to yield boring results.
Colleen Bianco Bezich, Frank Troy and Kevin Roche are expected to finish in the top three after the May 11 results are officially certified, but not before the lead-up to the election saw a smear campaign and residents were confronted with questionable polling location information.
During the second to last week of April, a flyer from a group dubbed Defend Haddonfield was circulated in town, casting aspersions on incumbent Bezich’s suitability to lead, her personal life and presumed connections to the Norcross family and its influence on Democratic politics.
Bezich issued a response video on April 24 through her candidate Facebook page, drawing praise for her comments and condemnation from residents as well as election rivals about the partisan nature of the flyer.
“My focus through last night continued to be on the election itself,” Bezich told the Sun the day after the election. “The unfortunate reality of being attacked by my neighbors and by a group I will represent — as I will serve any other group of residents — is sad, disappointing and essentially proves that as a community, we need our focus to be on building each other up and working hard.”
Through its Facebook page, the borough of Haddonfield informed the public on April 30 that the Camden County Clerk’s Office was made aware of a “coding error” in the printing of sample postcards revealing polling locations that residents were due to begin receiving that day.
Four days later, Borough Clerk Deanna Bennett told the Sun that she was made aware of the error by Bezich, who confirmed she was told by fellow residents of the misleading information. Those concerns were eventually relayed to the county board of elections.
Per the borough, the coding error was being corrected and residents were due to receive a postcard from the county clerk’s office providing the correct information on proper polling locations.
According to Bennett and several residents who contacted the Sun on condition of anonymity, one major complaint about the postcards was that voters were being directed to cast their votes at polling locations in another municipality. Haddonfield has 10 voting districts, and each of its six polling places are located within borough limits.
On the night of the election, the borough invited the public to watch vote tabulation via Zoom at 8:30 p.m. But roughly 40 minutes into the session, Borough Administrator Sharon McCullough reported that county officials left borough hall without allowing Bennett the chance to tabulate all votes from all 10 districts, plus mail-in ballots.
Several minutes later, McCullough revealed the officials would return, and at approximately 9:45 p.m., Bennett was able to begin tabulating the remaining votes. She was finished just before 10 p.m.
“Tuesday’s 36-percent turnout was about average for our May borough election. What surprised me is that of about 4,000 vote-by-mail ballots sent to voters’ homes, almost half were not returned,” noted Jeffrey Kasko, incumbent commissioner who was not elected for a fourth term.
“I’m not sure what that means about voter enthusiasm and participation, but those two low figures are concerning. I would like to thank all of the candidates for running and congratulate the three highest vote-getters. I wish them well.”
