A review of recently-released campaign finance reports show that the two sides in Hoboken’s April 27 Board of Education election ran very different campaigns, with the winning side outspending the losers by a two to one margin.

The winning side also hired 97 Election Day workers who were paid $35 each, and all but one of them voted by mail.

The Kids First slate, made up of Jean Marie Mitchell, Steve Feinstein, and Clifford Godfrey – and supported by allies of Mayor Dawn Zimmer – lost the April 27 school board race to the team known as Independents for Education, made up of Carmelo Garcia, Peter Biancamano, and Frances Rhodes-Kearns.

Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) forms show that Independents for Education spent $14,446, compared to $7,648 by Kids First.

Who funded the election?

While many city politicians often claim that the Board of Education elections are not politicized like the council races, a review of the ELEC documents shows that may not have been the case on April 27.

Former school board member Frank Raia, the Independents for Education campaign manager, donated $7,800 to the campaign, the legal limit for a donation to a slate of three candidates, according to a state ELEC representative. Individuals are allowed to donate $2,600 to each candidate on a slate, assuming the candidates are not operating other bank accounts. Richard Mason, City Council President Beth Mason’s husband, spent $7,540 on in-kind contributions for the Independents for Education, paying for palm cards, t-shirts, and Election Day workers.

Beth Mason is a staunch opponent of Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who backed the Kids First slate. Zimmer donated $600 to Kids First, while her ally Councilwoman Carol Marsh donated $500 and former council candidate Tom Greaney donated $700. Eric Kurta, another former council candidate supported by Zimmer, donated $500 to Kids First.

99 percent of paid Election Day workers voted by mail

Major campaign expenses for Kids First included printing costs, advertisements, and t-shirts. For the Independents for Education, they had similar costs, but the slate also spent a comparatively high amount of money on paid workers.

Independents for Education hired 152 campaign workers, while Kids First hired only three.

“We were right out there on the streets and [our campaign] was very visible,” Raia said last week.

Fifty-five workers from inside and outside of Hoboken were paid anywhere between $10 and $150 for canvassing during the campaign.

Ninety-seven “Election Day workers” were paid $35 each, and most are residents of the city’s housing projects. Of them, 96 voted by mail. One woman was paid $35, and requested a vote-by-mail ballot, but did not return it, according to a vote-by-mail list from the Hudson County Board of Elections.

Representatives and other workers for the Independents for Education delivered many of the vote-by-mail ballots to the county, according to documentation from the Hudson County Board of Elections.

So, what did the people who were paid $35 do for their money?

“Each person signed a contract for us and wore a t-shirt, and got their relatives to vote,” Raia said. “They gave out signs and got the vote out. They did an excellent job and they should be commended.”

When asked why 96 of the 97 Election Day workers voted by mail, Raia said he encouraged the workers to do so.

“I encourage everybody to vote by mail to get the vote out,” he said. “The opposition is too lazy to get out the vote. We encouraged people to get out the vote, vote-by-mail, and vote ahead of time. Instead of wasting time at the polls on Election Day, you could bring somebody else out to vote.”

Raia said the landscape of elections is changing, and he believes street visibility is more important.

“Money is much better spent having people get the vote out,” Raia said. “It’s the new wave.”

On the Kids First side, their candidates received 47, 48, and 36 votes by mail, respectively. Each Independent for Education candidate received over 400 vote-by-mail ballots.

Hoboken vs. rest of the county

If voting by mail is the new wave, it hasn’t caught on yet in the rest of Hudson County. In the school board elections in Jersey City, Kearny, Hoboken, North Bergen, Secaucus, and Weehawken, only 888 vote-by-mail ballots were cast out of the total 22,633 countywide voters.

In Hoboken, voters cast 548 vote-by-mail ballots in the election; meaning 61.7 percent of the total county vote-by-mail ballots in the county came from the mile square city.

Where did the VBM’s come from?

The 4th Ward, which contains much of the city’s public housing, has recently seen high vote-by-mail numbers.

Last fall, Councilman Tim Occhipinti received 399 vote-by-mail ballots, and paid 575 campaign workers approximately $40 each. The results of the election were forwarded to the Attorney General’s office from the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, but to date, no resolution has been announced.

Occhipinti’s opponent Michael Lenz hired approximately 20 Election Day workers and received only 43 vote-by-mail ballots in the November special election.

In the citywide school board race, a large portion of the vote-by-mail ballots once again came from the 4th Ward. That ward had 362 vote-by-mail ballots, compared to 16 in the 1st Ward, 21 in the 2nd Ward, 88 in the 3rd Ward, 44 in the 5th Ward, and 17 in the 6th Ward.

Kids First reflects

Hoboken remains one of the only cities in Hudson County where the candidates file their ELEC paperwork on time. Board of Education candidates still have not filed a majority of their required paperwork in cities like Kearny and Jersey City.

Liz Mulholland is the campaign manager for Kids First.

“[Independents for Education] have their base of voters and they came out like they always do,” Mulholland said, reflecting on the election. “Our base did not go out and vote. We had schools on vacation during the election. It was spring break…Normally when people come pick their kids up from school they see that it’s Election Day and decide to vote.”

Kids First listed three paid workers, compared to the 152 workers hired by Independents for Education, but that doesn’t mean they were outnumbered on the streets by such a large number.

“We had a lot of volunteers, a lot of moms,” she said. “The most amount of paid workers we’ve had over the years is about 10.”

Mulholland did say she was frustrated with the way the elections have gone.

“You’ll see that amount of $35 workers every year,” she said. “The numbers of workers and ballots always matches up, and ELEC will not do anything about it.”

Ray Smith may be reached at RSmith@hudsonreporter.com