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NJ town votes against local political candidates hiding party affiliation on ballot
By
Mike Hayes
Published Jun 24, 2026
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By
Mike Hayes
Published Jun 24, 2026
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Residents in Millburn Township, a wealthy New Jersey suburb west of New York City, have narrowly rejected an initiative to switch to nonpartisan elections.
The change would have allowed candidates for township committee to not disclose their party affiliation on the ballot this coming November – a change favored by local Republicans, who hold a 3-2 majority on the township committee, but largely opposed by Democrats.
A final vote tally on Tuesday revealed that the ‘no’ side prevailed by just 59 votes, with a total of roughly 4,000 ballots cast.
Bill Brazzell, a Millburn resident and Democrat currently running for a committee position, called the proposal to “hide” party labels “shady.”
“ Our government is not broken and there was no need to fix it,” he told Gothamist Wednesday. “I'm pleased with the fact that most of the voters felt that way, although it was certainly quite close.”
In the days leading up to the vote, local Democrats accused Republicans of pushing the initiative to shield their party from its connection to President Donald Trump and the national GOP. Trump’s popularity in the Garden State has plummeted from around 50% after his 2024 election to about 32% today, and Republican candidates have not fared well in high-profile gubernatorial and congressional elections in the state.
Republicans on Millburn's township committee denied that Trump was the reason they supported switching to nonpartisan elections.
Ben Stoller, a Republican committee member who was in favor of changing to nonpartisan elections, told Gothamist it was time to “move forward” after the initiative was defeated.
“What matters most is focusing on the important work ahead for our community. I remain fully committed to building on the progress we have achieved for all residents,” he said.
Stoller said that since 2023, when he was first elected to the committee, its accomplishments include reducing crime, lowering downtown commercial vacancies to 2.3%, and securing a long-term partnership with the popular Paper Mill Playhouse that will keep the theater in town for the next 30 years.
Other members of the township committee did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the results of the election. Democrat Michael Cohen told Gothamist last week that it was the most “vitriolic” election he’s ever been involved in, citing antisemitic remarks on his social media posts opposing the initiative.
Mayor Frank Saccomandi, a Republican who supported the change, came under scrutiny in past weeks for claiming nonpartisan elections were necessary because he personally had been “forced” to switch parties because Democrats would not allow him to run on their ticket for township committee.
Saccomandi later corrected that claim in a social media post a few days prior to the special election, admitting that he never sought the Democratic nomination when he first ran in 2022 because “the filing deadline had passed.”
Saccomandi did not respond to a request to comment on the results of the special election.
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Politics
election
new jersey
Mike Hayes
Mike Hayes covers equity and access to opportunity in New Jersey. He joined WNYC and Gothamist in 2023. Before that, he worked as a freelance journalist writing about policing and criminal justice. He has written for ProPublica, CNN, HuffPost, BuzzFeed News and The Appeal. He is also the author of the book, “The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform.” In 2019, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
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