After last year’s general election legal battle regarding runoffs, town council candidate Sayke Reilly said that a “winning” candidate for town council should actually get a majority of the votes cast. But the winning slate of Banks/Brown/DiFolco got 42% of the votes, which means that about 58% of voters wanted somebody else. In years past, this type of result would have resulted in a “runoff election” which would feature the top two slates only, guaranteeing that the winners would have greater than 50% of votes cast.
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And so this past summer, Mr. Reilly and a number of other residents collected the signatures of over 300 Mount Holly voters who agreed that a question should be posed on the ballot this coming November. Should Mount Holly re-instate its former system of having a runoff election when candidates do not win more than 50% of the voters?
On August 26, 2025, Township Clerk Sherry Marnell certified that the petition submitted by Reilly and company was sufficient for an initiative to be placed on the ballot. But County Clerk Joanne Schwartz determined that the petition was late and therefore said the question would not appear on the ballot this coming November.
Enter local lawyer Michael S. Rothmel. He quickly submitted a complaint to the court seeking to compel Schwartz to put the question on the ballot. Mr. Rothmel stated that “counsel for county read my complaint, read the statute I cited and agreed I was correct. He agreed to have it printed on Mt. Holly ballot and I withdrew my complaint.”
Discussing this outcome, Mr. Rothmel said that the decision was a major win for the town, especially because “In this polarized political environment, my complaint was submitted on behalf of the Chair of the Mt. Holly Democratic Committee, the Chair of Republican Committee and a leading Independent in Sayke. Where else in the country will you see Dems, Republicans and Independents united in one law suit about a voting issue?”
So, the people will get to decide this November whether candidates should govern when nearly 60% of the voters wanted somebody else.