Six candidates are running in the June 2 Democratic primary for 4 Commissioner At Large seats on the Essex County Commission: Deb Engel, running with Essex Reform Democrats; Marques-Aquil Lewis, Moving Essex County Forward; and four candidates endorsed by the Essex County Democratic Committee Inc. — Christine McGrath, Abdur R. Yasin, Shawn Klein, and the sole incumbent Wayne Richardson. See Village Green’s endorsement guidelines here.
The following press release if from SOMA Action:
South Orange/Maplewood, NJ – SOMA Action is proud to endorse the following candidates for County Commissioner:
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At-Large: Deb Engel
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Commissioner District 2: A’Dorian Murray-Thomas
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Commissioner District 3: Medinah Muhammad
“We’re glad to have some great candidates ready to represent us on the Board of County Commissioners,” said Allison Posner, Co-President of SOMA Action. “Deb Engel will be a strong advocate for South Orange and Maplewood as well as an independent thinker who will help make sure our entire county thrives. And although SOMA Action doesn’t normally endorse in uncontested races, we also wanted to lift up A’Dorian Murray-Thomas and Medinah Muhammad, the two phenomenal women who will represent our Commissioner Districts. Both are great candidates and deserve your vote.”
Although voters can vote for up to four candidates for At-Large County Commissioner, SOMA Action chose to endorse only one.
“We would love to have endorsed more,” said Erika Malinoski, SOMA Action’s other Co-President, “but without Ranked Choice Voting, it’s extremely difficult for candidates who are running independent of the party slate to win unless their voters vote strategically. Due to slate size effects, a candidate could be the top choice of 60% or 70% of voters and still lose if their supporters spread the rest of their votes evenly among the other candidates. Even though there are other good candidates for the at-large seat, I recommend voting only for Deb Engel to try to make sure she does get one of the seats.”
To decide the endorsements, SOMA Action voting members were asked to rank their first, second, third, etc. choices for each race, including an option to not endorse. The SOMA Action threshold for endorsement is a two-thirds supermajority.
Engel won endorsement on the first ballot with 94% of first place votes. In order to give voters a say in whether they wanted to endorse a second candidate, Engel was then eliminated, and her votes were redistributed to voters’ second choice candidates. Sixty-one percent of voters chose “No endorsement” as their second vote. Lewis, McGrath, Klein, and Yasin also received second place votes. For the commissioner districts, Murray-Thomas was endorsed with 75% of the vote and Muhammad with 78%.
Voting was open to 141 voting members, consisting of SOMA Action trustees, committee chairs, project leads, and sustaining members (those who have donated more than $20 in the last year). Thirty-six people chose to participate in the vote.
Additional information on the primary is available at the SOMA Action Voter Guide.
