By Donald Gilpin

Election Day 2022, November 8, is less than a week away, and many ballots have already been cast in early voting, which started last Saturday and continues through Sunday, November 6.

“It’s going really well,” said Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami Covello in an October 31 phone conversation. “We don’t have a huge turnout yet, but people are early voting. We’d like to see higher numbers voting early, but people are still getting used to the new system.”

There are three ways to vote in the upcoming election: early in person,  by mail, or at your polling place on Election Day.

Registered voters can cast their ballots early at any one of seven early voting locations throughout Mercer County. There is a Princeton early voting location at the Princeton Shopping Center, and other locations can be found at vote.nj.gov.

To vote by mail, voters can apply for and return a vote-by-mail ballot by following instructions at vote.nj.gov or by contacting the county clerk at mercercounty.org.

The third option is to vote in person at your designated polling place (see vote.nj.gov) between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8.

The most hotly contested local election is the Princeton Public Schools (PPS) Board of Education race, with five contenders for three seats. Two incumbents are running unopposed for two seats on Princeton Council, and Princeton voters are also weighing in on the contests for representative in the U.S. Congress and for two Mercer County Commissioners. There are no local, county, or statewide questions on the ballot for Princeton voters this year.

In the school board race, two new candidates — Margarita “Rita” Rafalovsky and Lishian “Lisa” Wu — are challenging three incumbents — Debbie Bronfeld, Susan Kanter, and Dafna Kendal.  Voters can choose three names on the ballot, and the three largest vote-getters will win seats for a three-year term beginning January 1, 2023.   

The challengers have been citing declining student test scores and school rankings, and are calling for greater transparency and change, while the incumbents have emphasized accomplishments in the PPS over the past three years and success in navigating the challenges of the pandemic.

In the election for Princeton Council, Democrat incumbents Michelle Pirone Lambros and Mia Sacks are running unopposed for three-year terms in two open seats.

Also on the ballot for Princeton residents is the election for the New Jersey 12th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman is running for her fifth term in Congress against first-time challenger Republican Darius Mayfield and a third-party Libertarian candidate, C. Lynn Genrich.

There are four candidates running for two seats on the Mercer County Board of Commissioners, two Democrats, incumbent Nina Melker and new candidate Cathleen Lewis, and two Republicans, Michael Chianese and Andrew Kotula.

Covello emphasized the importance of next week’s elections, both locally and nationally. “The entire Congress is up for re-election and this is going to have an impact on the direction our country is going to take in the future,” she said.