A Phase II meeting of the township charter commission caused some residents to question whether the process of examining the community’s current form of government was truly for the benefit of the people.
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The commission has met eight times this year, interviewing former and current officials from Monmouth County towns with governing bodies that differ from Holmdel’s and subject matter experts. At the March 16 meeting the commission listened to testimony from Rutgers School of Public Policy professor Julia Sass Rubin, considered one of the state’s leading experts in ballot design, according to commission chair and sitting Holmdel Township Committee person Kin Gee.
Rubin presented research that was pertinent to the commission’s examination, including a particular statistic regarding partisan elections and the impacts party lines may have at the federal, state and local level.
“No congressional incumbent on the county line has lost a primary (election) in the last 50 years,” Rubin said. She noted the average margin of victory for a candidate appearing on the county line on the ballot is 35 percent.