Hamilton Post
NOVEMBER 2018
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Racist posts rattle race Search of school board candidates’ Facebook accounts show 2 had history of offensive comments by diCCon hyAtt Two candidates for Hamilton Township Board of Education have come under fire for explicitly racist and anti-Muslim posts on their public Facebook pages. A search through the candidates’ public Facebook accounts discovered a lot of mundane online chatter, but it also revealed that accounts
belonging to candidates Richard Crockett and Sherry Morency have a history of posts that are offensive or openly racist. On Nov. 10, 2014, a Facebook account belonging to Morency posted a meme that criticized then-President Barack Obama for inviting Rev. Al Sharpton to the White House. Commenting on Morency’s post, Crockett’s Facebook account used a racial slur and obscenity, reprinted with asterisks below: “N****r Muslim President and a F*****ng Pig Race Baiter, what happen to this once GREAT COUNTRY???” Crockett’s Facebook account posted
in November 2014. Morency’s account “liked” this comment. Crockett, Morency, and Cynthia Simon are running on a slate together as part of a nine-person race for three open school board seats. On the same post about Al Sharpton, another person asked Crockett if he was “late for your clan meeting,” to which Crockett’s account replied, “I’m never late.” Morency’s account also liked this reply. In an interview with the Hamilton Post, Crockett denied making the comments and said he has never been to a Ku Klux Klan meeting. “The Ku Klux See FACEBOOK, Page 12
Bracketing comes to ballots Experts say change creates chance for confusion in Board of Education election by Rob Anthes ranthes@communitynews.org
Trent Walsh draws attention to the Boy Scouts’ fundraiser at Hamilton’s Oktoberfest at Veterans Park Oct. 14, 2018. For more photos, turn to Page 24. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
Ballots in New Jersey look a little different this year, and the change has experts and officials concerned about the potential for Election Day confusion. A law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy May 30 allows Board of Education candidates to file joint nominating petitions and to be bracketed on the ballot. The change to petitions has little effect on voters. But allowing school board candidates to be grouped together—similar to candidates of the same party for political office—has altered how county clerks con-
struct the ballot, and ultimately changed the appearance of the final product voters see on voteby-mail ballots and in booths on Election Day. This change in appearance is what worries some, especially because no one knows what the effects of the change will be. The law calls for the initial elections with bracketing to be used as a study period for lawmakers. Much of the burden falls to county clerks, who have been left no choice but to obey the law with little guidance on how to enact it. Ballots already looked different in every county in New Jersey, and clerks across the state have had to figure out how to best layout the ballot with the addition of bracketing. In Mercer County, clerk Paula Sollami Covello has added a bold blue line across the ballot to separate races for
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political office from the school board election. This alteration will appear in every Mercer municipality, but only three will also have bracketed candidates: Hamilton, Lawrence and Robbinsville. Voters in each of these townships will see school board candidates laid out horizontally side-by-side at the bottom of the ballot, with bracketed candidates stacked beneath their running mates. At the far left, underneath the office title, are instructions on how many candidates voters can pick. Voters can select that number of candidates, regardless of if they part of a bracket or not. For example, if there are three open seats, you can select any three of the candidates in that race—the row and column do not matter. You do not have to vote for all, or any, of the bracketed candidates. And one vote counts See BRACKET, Page 18
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