Councilman Mike DuPont at Democratic HQ on election night.
[Editor’s note: This article was updated at 12:27p with a statement from Kim Senkeleski]
A count of disputed ballots from last week’s election for two Red Bank council seats yesterday resulted in a widening of the leads of incumbents Art Murphy and Mike DuPont, officials say.
Borough officials say the numbers are final, and show that the Democrats beat back challenges by Republicans Kim Senkeleski and Rob Lombardi.
After the inclusion of the provisional ballots — votes cast in cases where the voter’s eligibility or residence was in doubt, mostly — DuPont remained the top vote getter, with 1,521, and Lombardi finished out of the money with 1,382.
At issue in the count was whether Senkeleski had overtaken Murphy. But the count widened in Murphy’s favor, as he picked up 20 votes from the provisionals, giving him a total 1,507, and Senkeleski added nine, putting her tally at 1,464, according to data distributed by the borough clerk’s office.
In a prepared statement sent to redbankgreen and other media, Senkeleski says:
I just wanted to let you all know that I did get in touch with the county this morning and will not ask for a re-count based upon the provisional ballots counted.
Rob and I will continue to attend council meetings and push some of the ideas we presented on our web site that received positive feedback during our campaign from residents in town.
Murphy and DuPont say they’re satisfied that the election is over. At last night’s borough council meeting, each thanked voters for re-electing them, and made a point of nodding to their opponents.
“I want to thank Kim Senkeleski and Rob Lombardi for running an issue campaign,” DuPont said.
Here’s the complete tally, which shows district-by-district results for all races from governor on down. 2009-general-election-results (You’ll need Adobe Reader to view the document; it’s free, and downloadable here.)
