New Edison Board Of Education Selected, Trust Fund Not Settled

EDISON, NJ — After a long campaign season in Edison, the polls are closed and the unofficial election results projections are in for new Board of Ed members and vote on the Open Space Trust Fund.

As of 9:29 a.m., these are the unofficial results for Board of Education (projected winners are marked in bold):

• CHEN 9,222
• CONWAY 9,531
• DeAMORIN 2,961
• ERRICO 9,746
• PRASAD-MADHUKAR 4,224
• VERMA 8,612

Conway, a projected winner, thanked her supporters but was modest in her statement pending official results. "Thank you to all my supporters. Unofficial results, I am one of three candidates elected. Results are not final until all mail-in ballots are accounted for," she said.

"I would like to express gratitude to everyone who believed in me and supported me. I fell short of what was needed to win this election. However I take solace in the fact that I played by the rules, remained positive and ran a clean campaign," Shivi Prasad-Madhukar, an incumbent who was not re-elected, said Wednesday morning.

And the unofficial vote totals for the Open Space Trust Fund (the vote remains too close to call without confirmation all the mail-in ballots were counted):

• Yes: 8,019
• No: 8,374

Results remain unofficial until certified by the county clerk. In close races, uncounted mail-in ballots could change the results.

The Board of Education race was the only local election this year, and, like always, was hotly contested. The newly-elected members will join currently-serving members in working on two key tasks: selecting a new superintendent, and figuring out a solution to the overcrowding in the district, particularly at J.P. Stevens.

Two incumbents were on the ballot: Ralph Errico and Shivi Prasad-Madhukar. Newcomers Yunxia "Yuna" Chen, Elizabeth Conway, Anthony DeAmorin, and Harish Verma round out the candidates.

The Open Space Trust Fund question asks voters if they want to re-establish a fund to benefit local parks and open spaces. That fund would allow the township to ask the county and the state for matching grants, in exchange for a small tax hike (about $18 a year for the average homeowner). It was previously in place from 1999-2013 before lapsing.

Image via Katie Kausch for Patch