County halts Election Day voter drive program What was touted as civic lesson was, to some, viewed as vote buying BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer EDISON - A program that was reportedly intended to increase voter turnout during the Board of Education elections ran afoul of the county Board of Elections, resulting in its shutdown midway through April 15. According to James Vokral, administrator of the Middlesex County Board of Elections, several people called the office the day before the elections to lodge a complaint about a program at the elementary schools. Board of Education member William Van Pelt said that under this program, children could get a gold star next to their name on a chart at the polling booth if they managed to get their parents to come out and vote. The school that had the most gold stars on their chart by the end of the day would receive $500. The day before the election, there had been a flier sent home with the students advertising this at each of the district's elementary schools. Van Pelt said that the Edison Township Education Association (ETEA), the local teachers union, had conceived of and executed the idea. Vokral, however, said there was a paragraph in Title 19 that said there could be no enticement offered for people to vote. When word of this program got to the county, the election board requested details of how the program worked to see whether or not the program complied with regulations. Vokral said that he never received the details of the program but heard that the contest was still going on. The board consulted with the Attorney General's Office, which said the Board of Elections should tell the ETEA to cease and desist. "They complied immediately, but it was an awkward conversation," said Vokral. There were further complications because the program was taking place in the same room as the booths themselves, and so it was, according to Van Pelt, too similar to campaigning. Van Pelt didn't necessarily think there was anything wrong with it, saying it was teaching kids about the importance of voting. "It was an idea that was generated by [New Jersey Education Association] convention, and I thought that when the president of the ETEA came out with it, when I first heard about it, I wasn't in favor of the reward but the concept was good because it was like a civics lesson encouraging people to come out to vote, and getting their kids out to vote was like teaching the importance of voting," said Van Pelt. An Edison resident and parent, Terry O'Brien, did not agree with Van Pelt's assessment. She felt that the program was an effort to influence the voting process. "It saddens me that something like this could happen and few Edison residents were aware of what had transpired and how the outcome of the voting process may have been influenced," said O'Brien, who has three children. She further called the effort "bad judgment" and "a desperate attempt to get votes by soliciting specific district children." Van Pelt said that in the future, the ETEA will need to go back to the drawing board in figuring out ways to encourage voter participation. Meanwhile, Steve Baker, a spokesperson with the NJEA, said that he had no recollection of encouraging cash prizes for encouraging voter participation. "We certainly have worked with locals and believe it's appropriate [to] encourage them to get people to vote. I don't think we've talked about cash prizes, but we believe it's important to get people to come out and exercise their civic duty and look into ways to accomplish that through activities in the school or various things that can go on, but in terms of cash prizes, I have not [heard of that]," said Baker.