Incumbents all hold leads in Paterson council races. Here's why that might change

PATERSON — With a 61-vote advantage, 1st Ward Councilman Michael Jackson, the man targeted for defeat by Mayor Andre Sayegh, declared victory on Wednesday morning.

At the time of his declaration, Jackson led his main opponent, Fannia Santana, by 773-712. But the election results are far from final, with unknown numbers of provisional and mail-in ballots still to be counted during the upcoming week.

Jackson acknowledged that the outcome could change before the results become official, asserting that he thinks the powerful political figures backing Santana — including Sayegh and leaders in the Passaic County Democratic Party — would “cheat” to beat him. Santana could not be reached for comment for this story.

Meanwhile, the five other ward incumbents — Shahin Khalique, Alex Mendez, Ruby Cotton, Luis Velez and Al Abdelaziz — seemed to have insurmountable vote totals. It means that if Jackson holds on to his lead, Paterson will continue operating for another two years with the same City Council that has come under criticism from community leaders for being dysfunctional.

The current vote tallies include all ballots submitted during early voting and those cast on Election Day at in-person polling sites, officials said. The numbers also include mail-in ballots delivered before Election Day.

State law requires all mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and delivered to election offices by May 20 to be included in the final tallies.

Hundreds of provisional ballots

In addition to the mail-ins, hundreds of people submitted provisional ballots on Tuesday. Under state law, people who run into problems casting their votes at the polls because of such things as home address discrepancies are allowed to submit provisional ballots.

The Passaic County Board of Elections will meet next week to decide which provisional ballots should be counted and which should not.

Here’s a look at each of the six ward races:

1st Ward

The 1st Ward is Paterson’s only election district where voter turnout exceeded the numbers for the two previous ward contests, with 2,010 votes cast this year compared with 1,950 in 2020 and 1,556 in 2016.

Political insiders attributed the increased turnout to new registrations and get-out-the-vote efforts by the Santana campaign as well as those of the two Bangladeshi candidates, Mosleh Uddin, who got 237 votes, and Mohammed Mohan Hossain, with 174.

Jackson on Wednesday said he suspects wrongdoing involving the surge of mail-in ballots cast in the 1st Ward. “I don’t trust any of them. They all cheat,” said Jackson, who has election fraud charges pending against him from four years ago.

Santana backers from the Sayegh camp had hoped that the two Black candidates in the race would siphon votes from Jackson. Those numbers turned out to be minimal — Rodney Addison got 82 votes and Ramona Blizzard 27. But they still could end up making a difference, depending on how the rest of the mail-in votes and provisional ballots shake out.

2nd Ward

In the 2nd Ward — where the election ended in a tie in 2020 — Khalique is ahead 1,895 to 1,513 over Aheya Khan. Political insiders said those numbers essentially represent a landslide in a ward where tallies have been tight in each of the past four elections.

Khan was endorsed by Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly, and Khalique had Sayegh’s support. The alliance between the incumbent councilman and the mayor developed over the past several years after Sayegh backed Khalique’s rival in 2020.

Neither Khalique nor Khan could be reached for comment. The third candidate in the 2nd Ward, Frank Filippelli, has 466 votes.

3rd Ward

3rd Ward incumbent Mendez survived strong criticism about his own pending election fraud charges to emerge on top. He has 1,144 votes, compared with 860 for Bill McKoy, who represented the 3rd Ward on the council for 20 years, and 367 for Assad Akhter, a former Passaic County commissioner who now works in the governor’s office.

Those numbers point to a substantial decrease in voter turnout in the 3rd Ward. Akhter attributed the downward trend to voters being disenchanted with city government and politics.

The controversy over Mendez’s false claim of an endorsement from Wimberly spilled into Election Day. The assemblyman said he saw a Mendez campaign truck riding through his neighborhood on Tuesday proclaiming that he was backing Mendez. Wimberly said he reached out to someone to complain.

Mendez said the video truck was not supposed to show the bogus endorsement flier and that he had it pulled as soon as he found out about it. The councilman attributed his claim of a Wimberly endorsement to a misunderstanding.

Mendez told Paterson Press on Wednesday that he doesn’t plan to seek the 3rd Ward seat again in the 2028 election. He said he will “run for something else” but wouldn’t specify what office he would seek. Mendez’s critics noted he may not be able to run for any office, depending on the outcome of the criminal case against him. He repeatedly has professed his innocence.

4th Ward

4th Ward incumbent Cotton won with a vote total that was far lower than what she got in previous elections. Cotton has 447, followed by Justin Rucker with 210 and Kimmeshia Rogers-Jones with 167.

In 2020, Cotton got 979 votes, and in 2016 she received 783.

Despite a surge in new housing in recent years, the 4th Ward’s voter turnout plummeted. In 2016, it was 1,730, but so far in 2024, just 831 votes were cast in the 4th Ward.

5th Ward

The 5th Ward also saw a drop in turnout, with 1,006 votes cast so far, compared with 1,966 in 2016.

The preliminary tally has Velez at 681, followed by Jeyss Abreu at 135, Sebastian Mejia at 132, and David Soo at 56.

6th Ward

Abdelaziz has about 84% of the votes counted so far in the 6th Ward.

His current total of 1,254 far surpassed that of his challenger, Abed Thabatah, who has 233.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Incumbents lead in Paterson council races. That might change