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Politics & Government

Few Ocean Voters Come Out for Uncontested Races

Only 5.9 percent of county's registered voters went to polls Tuesday, with no contests for county, state seats

With no state or countywide races to propel Democrat and Republicans to the polls, only 5.9 percent of the county’s 365,288 voters took time to nominate candidates for the November general election to fill 12 Legislative seats and one on the freeholder board in Tuesday’s primary election.

There were no contests for party nominations for any of the races to narrow the field for Legislative seats in four districts and a seat on the all-Republican freeholder board.

An off-year election already expected to bring few voters to the polls saw only 13.6 percent of the county’s 103,300 Republicans and 9.95 percent of 74,543 Democrats cast ballots, according to unofficial returns from Ocean County Clerk Scott M. Colabella.

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Voters were left with a sprinkling of local contests to generate interest in the election.

In the e, already off to a , Republican incumbent Joseph H. Vicari, a former Dover Township mayor elected to the board in 1980, got 12,041 votes. Michele Rosen, the Democrat, a former member of the Dover Township Committee who now lives in Waretown, received 6,345 votes, according to unofficial results.

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Both candidates have been on the attack for weeks, for receiving pensions and salaries at the same time from his freeholder post and job as Berkeley Township Superintendent of Schools, while on Rosen’s personal financial legacy, which includes a dismissed indictment for theft by deception, a bankruptcy, foreclosure and string of bounced checks.

While well-organized Republicans fielded a full slate of candidates Tuesday, no Democrats filed nominating petitions in Tuckerton, Barnegat Light, Bay Head, Eagleswood, for the Lakehurst Council, in Ocean Township, Plumsted, Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Tuckerton and Lavallette. Democratic write-in votes were cast in all those contests, so the vacant spots can be filled if those who got those votes accept the nomination.

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