Village Green aims to cover all local elections as fairly and completely as possible.
Maplewood Municipal Election: Two Township Committee Seats in 2023
Two of five Township Committee seats are up for election in Maplewood in 2023. Incumbents Victor De Luca and Dean Dafis won the Democratic primary in June. No Republicans or non-affiliated candidates have filed to run in the general election. The term of each seat is for three years. The general election takes place on Tuesday, November 7, 2023.
South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education
The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education election takes place on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Three of nine seats come up for election each year. The BOE election is nonpartisan.
Three candidates filed to run by the July deadline: Shayna Sackett-Gable, Liz Callahan and Will Meyer. The three are running together on the Together We Thrive platform.
On October 7, two residents announced write-in candidacies: former BOE members Jeff Bennett and Anthony Mazzocchi. Such candidacies are allowed by New Jersey law.
Although BOE candidates can run together on “tickets”, each candidate is on the ballot as an individual.
State Senate and Assembly District 28
Maplewood and South Orange have been redistricted into the 28th New Jersey legislative district. On the ballot for State Senator: Renee Burgess (D). No other candidates have filed to run as a Republican or from any other party, per Ballotpedia. For the two District 28 Assembly seats, Democrats Garnet Hall and Cleopatra Tucker are running against Republicans Joy Bembry-Freeman and Willie Jetti.
Voter Registration
Voter Registration Deadline for the General Election is October 17, 2023. Find out more about voter registration here.
Early Voting
Early voting for the general election in New Jersey runs from October 28, 2023 – November 5, 2023. Find out the early voting locations in your county here.
Village Green Guidelines
Village Green will publish candidate profiles for all candidates before the elections. These profiles must outline a candidate’s history and platform and not engage in attacks on opposing candidates.
We look forward to covering candidate forums and will post information on forums when they are announced. Two community-wide Board of Education candidate forums were announced for October; however, only the three BOE candidates who filed in July are participating. The Coalition on Race said that the two write-in candidates announced too late to alter its October 9 forum format. Read more about that Coalition on Race forum here. The Hilton Neighborhood Association is holding a forum on October 26; its board of directors voted against allowing the write-in candidates to participate.
Village Green has sent a questionnaire to all five Board of Education candidates and will publish their responses. The deadline to respond is October 20.
We do not cover individual candidate’s coffees, meet-and-greets or campaign events. No campaigning is allowed on our Facebook group.
Village Green publishes Letters to the Editors in support of candidates. Publishing these letters is at the discretion of the editors. We do not publish letters attacking competing candidates. We aim to publish as many letters as we receive — providing they do not contain personal attacks, profanity or verifiably false information; however, if there is a large volume of letters and they are received late in the race, we cannot guarantee that they will be posted. Letters to the Editors can be submitted to villagegreennj@gmail.com. Please send as a Word or Google document, not as a PDF.
Letters of support are an opportunity for residents to speak positively about why their candidate(s) of choice is(are) the best candidate(s). Please provide your name and place of residence (town and state).
The deadline for submitting a Letter to the Editor for the Fall 2023 general election is Tuesday, October 31, at 5 p.m.
Candidates are welcome to advertise on the site; however, advertising will not impact news coverage. In addition, candidates who present newsworthy items may receive coverage at the discretion of the editors.
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