Op-Ed: Board of Ed Elections Should Move to November
Dollar savings and increased voter turnout would be two of the advantages, argues the writer.
I am writing to urge the South Orange/Maplewood Board of Education to move their elections to November. While I can understand the arguments for why this option was not implemented for 2012, we now have more than sufficient time to begin preparing for 2013. Streamlining Board of Education elections with November elections would save our towns up to $35,000 and would greatly improve voter turnout. At present, turnout for BOE elections is roughly eight percent of registered voters—only 2800 voters. Changing the elections to November would bring out more than a third of the registered voters from the two towns. I strongly feel that an increase in turnout would change the dynamics of the issues and engage the voters in topics other than …
